


The Future Comes Sooner Than You Think

by Cymry



Series: Godlike [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Godlike (Roleplaying Game), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Best Friends, Crossover, Established Relationship, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, SHIELD, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-07-14 20:23:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cymry/pseuds/Cymry
Summary: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes came out of the ice to find themselves seventy years in the future. But not everything can be left behind so easily.





	1. I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Godlike is a Tabletop RPG focusing on superheroes in WW2. In the world of Godlike, anyone can gain superpowers, usually through sheer will, or a life-threatening situation. They are known as Talents. And you'd know that if you read the first one. This story follows straight on from the first so I wouldn't recommend jumping straight in.

Phil Coulson had been down to see Shield and Winter during the process. He’d also been given the task of setting up the recovery rooms, though that hadn’t gone as well. Through no fault of his own. Maybe. Recent events had a big question mark over them: Barnes’ amnesia effect at work.

Coulson considered himself a bit of an amature historian when it came to Talents. Just last month he’d gotten his hands on a first edition of _War Portraits: Talents of the United States_ \- now resting safely in his collection. And out of all them Shield was the best. It was so different to see him in real time - if not in the flesh yet - moving through the same building.

“So there they are.”

Surveillance had assigned two agents to watch them, different angles appearing as the Talents were escorted from the garage. A lot more agents were doing the escorting. Rogers’ blond head and Barnes’ dark one were visible in the middle of the scrum.

It was all going well until they exited the garage. It was there, just before the elevators, that Barnes abruptly halted. A ripple of motion occurred through the SHIELD agents, hands going to concealed weapons.

Sarabia, at the console in front of Coulson, tapped a few keys, bringing up the view from the camera above the door. Barnes’ bowed head was visible in the doorway, agents backing away. His shoulders were shuddering. There was nothing out there. Just the elevator doors. The rest of the corridor was empty. Even the coffee stain had been removed from the white-tiled walls.

“Bucky?” said Rogers, coming back. He stared at his fellow Talent intently, lips moving very, very slightly.

“What’s happening?”

“They got a trick,” said Sarabia. She was typing up a note on the report, eyes on the alert button. “Sub-vocalising, we think. We got mics that can pick it up, but not everywhere.”

Barnes moved as soon as Rogers held out a hand and Coulson let out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding.

“Wonder what that was about?” Saibara went back to her screens, switching cameras. Both Talents went into the elevator. Barnes was visibly tense.

“Did you get anything?”

“No, sir. Wan?”

“Nothing.”

Coulson watched Rogers and Barnes huddle together in the middle of the elevator. Rogers had his hand on the other man’s arm and doing the trick again. This time they were close enough to a mic for his words to be picked up and broadcast onto one of the many screens.

_SR - It’s okay._

_SR - I’m not going anywhere._

_SR - Stay with me, Bucky._

“Well, it’s Banner, next,” said Coulson, looking at all of Shield’s kind words. “Let’s see what happens.”

***

As the elevator took them up Bucky’s energy seemed to drain away until Steve’s hand on his arm was for support and not just comfort. He stumbled the short distance to the big glass box they were deposited in, staying on his feet just long enough to collapse onto one of the sleek leather coaches.

“You okay?”

They were in a room made of three enormous panes of glass. There were two other couches and a low table in the middle and four guards flanking the entrance. Bucky was watching them with his head resting on the couch arm. Clearly he was not in a talkative mood. So Steve mentally played back their short journey, fleeing through the building and out into Times Square. From car to garage to the elevators. And the corridor where the elevators were with the white tiles and the concrete floor and the stink of cleaning products. All that had been missing was the hint of old blood beneath it all and one Swiss torturer.

“You got through it, Buck.” If they were alone, he would have kissed him. “I’m proud of you.”

“I sure showed that hallway,” Bucky said without looking away.

Someone passed the guards and Bucky hauled himself back up.

“Hi.” The new guy was dressed in a white coat and was clutching a shiny, white rectangle to his chest. “I’m Dr. Banner. I was in the front of the car.”

“Sure, I remember.” Steve offered his hand, mostly out of reflex, and Banner shook it. Bucky did not and Banner quailed a little in the face of his blank look.

“I’m looking you over today. I mean, you’ve been moving around pretty easily, but you have been in ice for a long time.”

He didn’t look frightening. He had dark curly hair that was going to grey and was in dire need of a shave. The white coat was too big on him, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. He didn’t look frightening, but neither had Zola.

“We’re going in together,” he told Banner. Bucky watched them both, mouth in a tight, thin line.

“Okay, that’s fine.” He took a few steps backward, “Let’s go then.”

There were so many eyes around so all Steve could risk was a hand resting briefly on Bucky’s back. Later - later he could hold him properly. Let him rest. Please God, let him rest because he didn’t know how long Bucky could keep dragging himself back up. With just one hallway he’d been taken straight back to Zola’s lab, and the weight had come back down and started to crush him.

They went up a couple of more floors, crammed into the elevator with Banner and the same guards. That wasn’t so bad since Bucky could lean against him, a long cool presence on Steve’s side.

The clinic was well-lit with natural light coming through a tall window. New York was out there. More skyscrapers had popped up in the last seventy years, futuristic things of glass and steel. There were so many cars.

In one corner there was a padded table that Bucky had spotted. His eyes were fixed on it and he was creeping closer to Steve.

“No straps,” said Steve. He went sub-vocal again, speaking so softly that only Bucky’s ears could pick it up. “Just a little longer.”

“Okay, so these are little tests, just to make sure you’re both functioning as you should. Normal stuff, not too different from what you had in the forties.”

Banner looked down at the plastic rectangle and touched something that made it light up. It was like a portable screen and it reacted to Banner’s touches.

“We gave you your vaccinations while you were still out, so don’t worry about polio or future flu this year. Um… SHIELD will try and catch you up on history and stuff. But we won the war in case you were wondering.”

Banner looked up from his screen, his eyes going from Steve to Bucky and then settling back on Steve.

“Would you like to go first, Captain?”

There was a line of plain chairs over by the door - and the armed guards - and Banner dragged one over.

“Sure.” Steve kept his posture open and relaxed. He’d walked Bucky through his bad days back in the forties, the bad nights too. This wasn’t so different to helping him get through debrief.

For his part, Bucky watched him go and stayed hovering in the middle of the room. God, he was dead on his feet, wasn’t he, in a way he hadn’t been since the march from Zola’s lab.

“Sit down, Buck,” he said at normal volume. “You look beat.”

What he chose was the floor, less than an arm’s length away from Steve. He sat with his hands on his knees, back against a filing cabinet.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable-?” said Banner, but he gave up at Bucky’s closed-off look. “Okay then. So I just got to take some blood first, Cap. Not a lot, just the two vials.”

He held them up so that Steve - and more importantly, Bucky - could see them, and Steve liked Banner for that.

“Just… Just don’t mind if I can’t get the vein the first time. I’ve not done _this_ kind of doctoring in a while.”

“What kind do you usually do?” Behind him, Bucky shifted.

“Biomedical science. Among other things.” It took him only two tries to get the vein. “I’m mostly here as a Talent and there’s not much choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh.” Banner stoppered the last vial. “I think SHIELD was going to cover this but… Talents aren’t as common as they were in your day. Maybe a couple of hundred worldwide? If that.”

Steve thought he heard Bucky say something. He didn’t repeat himself, but Steve could feel the tension in Bucky.

“Okay, so I got the EKG thing here.” Banner pushed a trolley over. He didn’t look at either of them while he was negotiating the floor. “So all we got to do is get these electrodes and-”

Steve had never forgotten just how fast Bucky was, but he hadn’t expected it out a Bucky so tired and worn down. The second the word ‘electrodes’ came out, he was up and he very nearly got Banner. Steve tackled him and brought him to the floor. It was like riding a nest of snakes.

“Bucky, it’s okay! It’s okay, he won’t hurt me! It’s okay!”

Bucky _fought_ him, trying to use his whole body as a lever to pry Steve’s arms open. But Steve was stronger and heavier now. Even then he had to bear it all down onto him. And God, if he had to hurt Bucky after all this.

“Don’t shoot!” Banner was there, between the guards and Steve, between the bullets and Bucky. “Don’t make me…”

Somehow that made the guards retreat though none of the guns dipped too far. Then Banner knelt by the two of them, Bucky giving Steve one last heave…

“I’m sorry, Sergeant Barnes.” And just like that all the fight flowed out of Bucky. “Could have just used the stethoscope, right? That’s what sucks about the future, I guess.”

Was there a green tinge to his skin just above the collar? But there was no time for that because Bucky started making a horrible asthmatic noise. No time for anyone but Bucky. He hauled Bucky up against his chest, gently telling him to breathe ( _just breathe_ ).

Steve tried to drive all thoughts of electrodes from his mind. They had featured in Bucky’s debrief. He did not want to think about the Bucky of 1943, who’d sat looking down at the table describing how Zola had ran electricity through his body until he burnt. There’d been a neat chart too, marked on both arms and legs; his chest; his groin.

“No more,” he said, when Bucky was quiet and breathing and not leaving his sight. “No more today, please. Just look at him.” Bucky’s skin was so cold he burnt. He was slumped bonelessly against Steve with his eyes closed. Hopefully he was somewhere more peaceful for a while.

“I think they have a place ready for you.”

One of the guards gave a begrudging nod. Banner went and got his portable screen. There was no green tinge on him.

“Do you need a hand with him? I could call for a gurney.”

“No, it’s fine.”

He slid his arms under Bucky’s knees and back and picked him up. There was enough awareness in Bucky for him to slide his arms around Steve’s neck. For a second he had a dizzying sense of deja-vu. Bucky had done this for him more than once, when he was smaller.

“Captain?” said Banner as they left. “Has he had panic attacks before?”

‘Panic attack’ seemed the right way to describe it.

“Two days ago,” he said, before he remembered. “Two days and seventy years.”

He carried Bucky the whole way, down three floors and three corridors until they reached an anonymous door. Banner flashed an ID of some kind at a black square on the wall, then tapped something into a keypad. Behind the door was a living room and kitchen that their old apartment would have fitted in with room to spare.

“There’s a bedroom through here,” said Banner.

He held the door open for Steve. Steve’s arms had gone numb with the cold so he concentrated on not dropping Bucky. Thankfully the covers were already turned down and he laid Bucky on the mattress as gently as he could manage. In his younger, sicker days he would have killed for a thick quilt like the one he pulled over him. He only hoped that it would be enough.

“How is he?”

Banner had an armed guard looming over him, but seemed all concern.

“Sleeping.” He felt better when he was in between the door and Bucky. “I’m sorry, Dr Banner. Bucky would say the same if he could.”

Had Banner's eyes always been green?

“He wouldn’t have got me, Captain. We can help him. I can promise you that.”

And what shape would that help take? A shot of Blue 88 and luck? The lobotomy?

“I should be with him,” he muttered to his feet.

“Get some sleep yourself. There’s eyes on you here so don’t worry about watching him. The other bedroom’s next door.”

Steve waited until they all left before sagging, and he wondered who was watching him do that too. That black rectangle bolted to the wall was very suspicious.

When he found Bucky, shuddering and gasping the evening before the _Valkyrie_ , it had been very clear what he needed. He’d needed holding and warmth and protection. But they’d had a private space then.

In the here and now Bucky was asleep, something Steve had seen plenty of times over the years. He could draw the fall of dark hair on a pillow from memory. But it wasn’t restful sleep: he was shivering even under the covers.

If Banner was lying about helping Bucky then Steve would… Well he didn’t know what he’d do, but he wasn’t going to stand for it.

***

“How are your new friends?”

On screen, Natasha was examining her freshly-painted nails. Each one was gleaming red and perfect against her white dressing gown. Behind her was a plain magnolia wall that could have been any hotel or rental in the world.

“Oh, you know. Getting to know each other through panic attacks and science experiments. Just another normal day at SHIELD. How was your day?”

“Successful,” she said with just the slightest curve of her lips. “And I didn’t even go viral.”

Bruce groaned.

“Why Times Square, Nat?”

“No one’s made the connection to World War Two just yet. I remember you arguing against the fake room plan.”

“It put us on the back foot, Nat. One’s a biological reeducation survivor who our shrinks say is probably riddled with PTSD. And his best friend is very famous and very protective with problems of his own. Neither of them trust SHIELD much.”

“And will they trust you?”

“Rogers might.”

“Fury’s asked me to come in on it with you. Talent to Talent.” Survivor to survivor was what they left unspoken.

“Thank God, Nat. All I got here is hope and _Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies_.”

“Is that a real book?” Natasha shook her head, “Don’t make a move until I get back. Let some poor therapist wear them out first.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Sooner than you think.”

***

“You’re back in the fight, Barnes. Against my wishes,” said Ross. Bucky did not respond, but kept up the blank mask that had served him well so far. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re a liability at best, a danger at worst. If everyone else wasn’t so blinded by Talent and _celebrity_ , they would see that too.”

“Sir.” That seemed the safest thing to say.

“To be blunt-” like he hadn’t been before “-Captain Rogers is the only thing standing between you and a short, sharp shock to the brainpan. So you better be watching the Star Spangled Man’s back. You’re nothing more than his shield. You are Shield’s dog.”

Bucky had been tracking Steve all this time and knew he was safe and waiting outside. Probably absorbing more strays into the Howling Commandos.

“I’ve been watching Steve Rogers' back all my life, sir. I’m not going to stop.”

“If he goes, so do you. Dismissed, Sergeant.”

Bucky saluted and went to Steve’s side without using the door. The sunlight caught his blond hair and when he smiled everything was alright.

When Bucky opened his eyes - taking a couple of seconds to remember he was in the future - it was cold. He was covered in two heavy quilts, one blue and one cream-coloured, and the only noise was the scratching of pen on paper. That was Steve, of course, keeping watch all by himself without his metal shield or his human one. He was sat on the floor by the bed, a pad of yellow paper balanced on one leg. The sheet he was working on was covered in idle pen doodles, a tree, a dog, a staircase.

“Steve.”

“Hey, Buck.” He put both pen and paper down on the floor, “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone wrung me out.” Even his voice was done in.

Steve knelt by the side of the bed. He wasn’t in here with Bucky, warming him up. That meant they were being watched.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“...Yeah.”

Thinking they were going to hurt Steve. Not even looking for a weapon, just going for the doctor with his bare hands.

“Dr Banner called it a panic attack.”

“Felt like I was dying.”

Steve flinched. His hands gripped the cream quilt. If only Bucky could pull him under the blankets and let those hands roam across his skin and let them both forget.

“They… Banner says they could help you.”

“What do you think?” Because Zola had often said he was helping too.

“I think that if they don’t, I’ll get you out of here myself.” God bless Steve Rogers’ stubborn ass. “And they’re watching us so they probably heard that.”

“They’d better watch themselves.” Bucky yawned. His body felt heavy enough to go straight through the mattress and into the floor. And he was frozen.

“Go back to sleep, Buck.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve been asleep for seventy years. I’d have to be a real lazy bum to be sleeping now.”

“You ass.”

Steve’s hand rested on the top of his head and it was so warm.

“I’m glad you’re with me, Bucky.”

“Just let me beat this.” His eyelids were heavy too. “Be back to watching your six soon.”

“I’ll be here. Go to sleep.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You) was a hit in 1944 with the version by Harry James and Dick Haymes.
> 
> Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies is indeed a real book.
> 
> I'm playing with the timeline a little in this one. Godlike does have a modern-day version called Wild Talents which I don't own. Hence making stuff up.


	2. Don't Fence Me In

Imagine if all the world’s Talents were plotted on a graph.

First would be a single solitary blip in 1936. That’s Konrad Rahn, _Der Flieger_ , Hitler’s flying man. Over two years later another blip, the second Talent Briety Krizova, _Pevnost_ . Then we wait eleven months until _Cien_ emerges. Three years for three Talents, but then it only takes three months until Talent number four ( _Viljo_ ). After that there are more and more, faster and faster until there are new Talents every day. German blips, British blips, Russian, French, American, Chinese. By the end of the war there are over two hundred thousand Talents on the planet. Rogers and Barnes are in the ice at that point and so are not counted.

And after the bombs fall in Japan… progress halts. Then falls. Some Talents succumb to war wounds. There’s cancer, cirrhosis, heart failure, car crashes. Old age. In a few cases something even more exotic, especially the mad Talents, but these lessons are screened so we do not destabilise Barnes (possible mad Talent).

Life-threatening danger and strength of will are still what they were during the war and, yes, more Talents do appear. But not nearly enough for replacement. Even Korea and Vietnam produces mere few Talents that are like the candle that burns twice as bright and half as long.

In the twenty-first century Talents number so few. How much more valuable does that make each one?

***

Bruce opened the door to his inner sanctum to find that it was already occupied.

“Hope you don’t mind,” said Natasha. She was curled up in Bruce’s chair, mug in both hands. Truth be told he didn’t really like the writing on it ( _YOU WON’T LIKE ME WITHOUT MY CAFFEINE_ in bright green) but it did hold the perfect amount of coffee. “I helped myself to your coffee. And your desk.”

“When did you get in?”

Bruce closed his office door behind him, coming closer. There were discarded high heels and a designer handbag on the floor and he stepped carefully around them.

“About two hours ago. Zagreb. Thought I’d get a headstart on the latest mission while I restart my bodyclock.”

There was video playing on the monitor.

“Oh. Panic attack number three. You just missed it.”

It was the tail-end of the footage. Pieces of desk and chair were scattered across the floor. Barnes was sprawled out in the middle of it and next to him Rogers was extorting him to breathe.

“He’s got it bad,” Natasha said. She had one earbud in and was watching Rogers’ face intently. “But I suppose the war was only a few weeks ago as they see it.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I have a few ideas to run past you and Fury.”

She paused the video and brought up another. That was just the two of them playing catch-up on history with Phil Coulson. While the subtitles spelt out the rise and fall of Talents in the world, Natasha watched Barnes.

“What does this say to you?” she said, tapping one fingernail on the Barnes of yesterday.

He was always moving, thought Bruce. His head kept turning to the exits as people went by and he sat pushed back from the table so nothing got into his way.

“He’s on guard.”

“Exactly,” said Natasha, smiling like a pleased cat. “To me, it says ‘bodyguard’.”

***

Night time surveillance was often uneventful when the subjects were Steve Rogers and James Barnes. Mostly it consisted of watching a sleeping figure on the screens. Emily Wray had been assigned Barnes tonight. Of the two, he was the more restless and prone to nightmares. Usually he would have been up by now, maybe spending a quiet hour shivering in the living room. But this time he was having a good night, tucked up in bed and by all accounts dead to the world. The previous day’s report had been full of the fallout from panic attack number three, so maybe he was just too tired even for nightmares.

Wray was typing up her hourly report ( _0100 - JB asleep, no change, no activity_ ) when she suddenly noticed that Barnes was no longer in bed. Swearing very slightly, she hit the button that flagged the last ten minutes of footage.

“Stratton!” Across the room, John Stratton jumped and dropped his phone. “Get off that. I’ve lost Barnes.”

“Sorry, sorry, it was Eva and- I got him. He’s in with Rogers.”

She brought up the main feed from Rogers’ room and there he was. He stood next to the bed, watching the other man. Unlike Barnes, Rogers was not having a good night. He was shuddering and his fists were clenched in the quilt. Delicately Barnes extended a hand and shook Rogers by the shoulder.

“Wake up.”

***

Bucky took a shuddering breath and that made blood bubble out from between his lips, staining them red. The shattered nose of the _Valkyrie_ had turned inward and the broken console had pierced his body. Despite that his head could still turn to face Steve with an accusing look and-

“Wake up.”

There was no ice. There was only the plain white ceiling above him. Next to his bed stood Bucky with no froth of blood in his mouth.

“Bucky?”

“I heard your heart going a mile a minute, Steve.” ( _When Wray realised she forgot again, she hit the flag button_.)

“I’m sorry. You didn’t have to come in.”

But Steve could never lie to Bucky, especially when he knew just how hard Steve’s heart was going. He was pale as a ghost against the dark pyjama pants SHIELD had provided and still a thing of whipcord and sharp angles.

“It’s stupid really. But well… We were on the _Valkyrie_ again and this time… Sometimes I can’t quite believe that this is all real. I mean, if I was still in the ice-”

Bucky cut that off by pinching his arm.

“Oh look. Turns out I’m real, Rogers. And there’s only room for one headcase in here.”

“You’re not a headcase.”

“All these shrinks they’re throwing at me says different.”

He sat down at the foot of the bed, his legs out in front of him. If Steve moved just a little to his left their legs would be touching. But someone was always watching.

“You need feeding up.”

“The tables have turned, Steve. Going to be harder now they’ve taken all the knives away.” Bucky’s eyes were sharper too and they bored into Steve’s. “It’s too peaceful, right? After-” he suddenly took an interest in the corner of the room. “After Zola… It was like that for me. They want you to lie down and be quiet, but there’s this…” His hands worked at thin air, sketching out random shapes.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Buck.”

“Tell that to the shrinks.” But he lowered his hands, putting them in his lap, and his eyes met Steve’s again. In the war, in their little tent, they could have held each other close for warmth. They could have shared a kiss or a quiet fumble. In the future, in the now, they were so close. It would be the work of second to reach out and pull Bucky under the covers with him and-

Bucky slid off the bed.

“You should go back to sleep.”

He glanced at the empty half of the bed and gave Steve that sad look that said _I would, but_.

“I know.”

But Bucky hadn’t gone yet and Steve half-hoped he’d throw it all away, no matter how many people were watching him.

“You know what Ross used to call me? Among other things.” He cocked his head smiling like the Bucky Barnes of 1942. “Shield’s attack dog. I don’t mind,” he added, on seeing Steve’s outraged face. “I knew what my job was. I watch you and you watch me. That’s how it is.”

“Like the old days.”

“The very old days. Go back to sleep, Steve. I’m always watching.”

***

_0107 - JB back in room. Conversation with Rogers concluded._

_0116 - JB in living room. Searching._

_0153 - JB concludes search in living room. Surveillance equipment not detected. [See full report.]_

_0154 - JB in bathroom. Searching._

_0218 - JB concludes search in bathroom. Surveillance equipment not detected. [See full report.]_

_0224 - JB returns to room._

***

Not remembering a panic attack wasn’t too unusual according to Bucky’s new shrink, who appeared only one of those portable screens ( _tablet_ ). What Bucky knew of panic attack three was what Steve told him. He’d smashed up furniture and terrorised Medical, just like 1943, and so he was confined to quarters. That meant Steve was too, for the simple reason that he’d said “yes” when Bucky had asked ( _pleaded_ ) not to be left alone.

Not remembering was good. The worry could be shoved to the back of his head. It was more important to listen to Steve get excited over _Lord of the Rings_ . It was more important to remember when he’d gotten _The Hobbit_ for Steve. And above all it was important to listen.

***

“I hear our boys are on lock-down.”

Director Fury motioned Natasha to a seat, which she took.

“I hear,” she continued, “that he’s on suicide watch. No knives in the safehouse, twenty-four hour surveillance.”

“It’s more a murder watch. For suicide we would have taken the sheets and the shower curtain too. But I’m told you have some ideas on that front.”

“Agent Herbert’s more of a blunt instrument.” And had gone around with a black eye for two weeks, courtesy of the escape attempt. “Let me take them out.”

“Out into a city of eight million people? If it were anyone else in front of me, I’d call them crazy.”

“Anyone else couldn’t do it.” Let alone someone whose pride was still stung over a shiner.

“The guy gets panic attacks going to the goddamn shrink-”

“From being under the microscope. This is New York, Fury. No one pays any attention. Getting _both_ of them out away from the cameras will be a good thing. Confined to barracks like this they’re only going to feel backed into a corner and-”

Three shrieks of the alarm cut Natasha off.

“ _All agents, code thirteen. Containment breach. All agents, code thirteen._ ”

“And they might take matters into their own hands.”

***

The Company of the Ring were travelling down the river Anduin when Bucky sat upright. He had the distant look on him that said he was listening to something far away. And then he vanished.

***

“Stratton, I’m going to the can. Keep an eye on Barnes for me.”

“Told you that casserole sits out too long.”

“Fuck off.”

Washburn left and Stratton turned back to his screen. It would be easy enough. Barnes was sat right next to Rogers, quiet as a lamb. Maybe they’d doped him up after the last freak out.

Since nobody was watching, he slid his phone out of his pocket and called Eva.

“Hey, baby,” he said, turning away from the screen. “How’s your day going?”

While he was hearing all about Eva’s ongoing cold war with Bethany from the next cubicle over, Bucky Barnes stole his ID.

***

When the door opened, Steve tried not to look too guilty for losing track of Bucky, but it was him on the other side. Two jackets were flung over one arm and he was walking an ID card across his fingers.

“How about a night on the town?”

“Buck, what are you-”

“Only for an hour or two.” And a smile spread across his face, a classic from before the war. This was Bucky’s smile when he was getting up to mischief. “Don’t you want to see the new New York?”

They shouldn’t, but how could Steve resist when he smiled like that ( _when he smiled at all these days_ ).

“Only for an hour?”

“Promise.” He flung a jacket at Steve. “Come on. We got three minutes until the other one gets back.”

Steve had no idea what that meant, but he put the jacket on and followed Bucky out. Like he’d been walking these corridors for years, Bucky took twists and turns confidently. Occasionally he’d stop and do something elaborate agility-wise in front of cameras until Steve got past, hiding them both under his amnesia field.

And then they were out.

They stopped only when they were two blocks away. In seventy years they hadn’t managed to solve the traffic problem. It was noisy, people crowded the streets with no time to stop. It felt like home.

“God,” said Bucky, “I can breathe out here.” As if to prove it, he took a big gulp of that New York air.

“Bucky, maybe-”

“Just a couple of hours can’t hurt, right?” There was an alleyway to their right and Bucky veered in. There was a row of cars along one side, all modern. “Away from all those goddamn eyes. Don’t you deserve a bit of privacy, Steve?”

There was a certain look that Bucky had. It combined the slightly cocky curve of his mouth with dark eyes, that were almost all pupil. That look had haunted Steve’s dreams throughout his teenage years. From 1936 and onwards it had belonged to him.

Catching quick moments in private was just a fact of life for men like them. Compared to some of the places they’d used in the war, a service doorway in a New York alley was practically luxurious.

That happy sigh Bucky made in the back of his throat as their lips met went straight to Steve’s groin. He grabbed Bucky round the waist, trying not to crush him. But if he rolled his hips like that one more time, he’d not be held responsible.

“Was that your first kiss since 1945, soldier?” Bucky hands were on his shoulders. His fingers dug in like he was afraid of being parted.

“It was worth it.”

“Sap.”

Bucky kissed him on the neck, right on the sensitive spot. The only thing that had changed after the transformation was that Bucky didn’t have to bend down to get to it. When Bucky grazed it with his teeth, Steve almost saw stars.

But their hearing was better than normal people and what they heard was another thing New York hadn’t got rid of yet.

***

Your average mugger was not prepared for someone like Steve Rogers. Bucky had to admit that it did something to him, watching Steve lift up a man with one hand and shake him like a puppy. He half-expected him to give a lecture as well, but instead the stolen wallet and watch were returned and said mugger handed quietly over to the police. He wondered idly if the NYPD had any Talents.

“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” he said to Steve. Behind them one of the arresting officers was staring after him. Wondering where he’d seen Steve’s face before?

“I hope not,” he said, shadow going over his eyes.

So Bucky pulled out his prize and waved it under Steve’s nose.

“Do you think people in the future still eat hot dogs?”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Your new friend dropped it. Ten dollars.” He met Steve’s disapproving look with that smile he liked so much. “He _dropped_ it. While robbing someone.”

“Hot dogs?”

“Central Park’s not far. We got time.”

He knew he won when Steve rolled his eyes. Turned out that ten dollars didn’t buy as many hot dogs as it used to. But Central Park was nice. It was autumn in New York and there was sunlight on Bucky’s face. Everything in this moment was good.

“We got enough for another one?”

His eyes were closed, but as always he was keeping tabs on heartbeats. There was the hotdog guy a hundred feet away, a couple of walkers a little further, and a dog walker with five dogs in a crowd. And as always there was Steve, right next to him on the bench.

“If we split it.” There was the rustle of paper change and coins. “I notice you’re not offering to get it.”

“Nope.”

“Jerk.” But he got up anyway. “I’m going to get extra onions and you’ll suffer tonight.”

“Worth it.”

He turned his head and opened his eyes to watch Steve walk away. His fella was cute from every angle. Three ladies ran past (where had those tight clothes been when Bucky was single?) and gave him a look. Bless him, Steve didn’t even notice.

From his other side, someone came up and sat on the end of the bench. Apparently one thing the future still did was beautiful redheads. She wore a leather jacket and her hair in soft curls around her face. Peggy Carter had worn that into battle. She smiled across at him and said,

“Hello, James.”

Central Park was always busy, but were there more people converging onto their little slice of it?

“We’re not here to fight, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She took a sip from a cardboard cup in her hand. “I’m Natasha Romanov. SHIELD’s _other_ Talent.”

“So what are you here for? We were coming back.”

Steve was safe over there by the hotdog cart. If it came down to it, Bucky could buy time for him to get away. The tricky bit would be persuading Steve to run.

“I thought so. Hard to get out of New York on ten dollars.” She suddenly smiled. “You know, you proved me right in the presence of Nick Fury himself. I’ll be bringing that up for years.”

“How did we do that?”

No one had mentioned what SHIELD’s Talents could do. Banner had seemed confident he could handle him and Steve. During the war he had learnt that most Talents died if you took them unawares.

“I told him that keeping you inside was a mistake. Did you think it was helping?” She drained her cup and threw it into the bin behind her without looking. It went in. “From how you broke out, I’d say no.”

“So what are you? Some kind of shrink?”

“Not officially. But I have experience. A long time ago, someone tried turning me into a weapon too.”

He was in Central Park in autumn sunlight, but his skin instantly went cold. Natasha nodded to herself.

“Zola wasn’t the only one to make the connection. If Talents can be made by life-threatening situations… Well I’m sure you can fill in the gaps.”

Then she was next to him, smelling of perfume. If she had a knife on her, Bucky wondered if Steve could get here in time to save him.

“You’re hurting, James. Someone saw you as a thing to chop and change as they liked and you’ve chosen to cope by becoming a thing.”

Bucky could feel a band of pressure tightening around his chest. Steve was heading back, hotdog in one hand, concerned expression on his face.

“Am I right?”

“It’s okay,” said Bucky, every word forced out between his teeth. “If I got to be a thing, then I’m Steve Rogers’ thing.”

“And if he’d prefer you not to be?” She leant back watching Steve, the man with the body of the Greek god and the heart of a ninety-pound asthmatic. “It’s no life being a thing. I think Bruce and I can help you. If you’re willing to try.”

***

**Secure connection established. Connection will terminate in 180 seconds.**

_Perimeter_ _breach confirmed._

_SHIELD and WINTER will be scheduled off-site time._

_Details unconfirmed._

_What are your orders?_

_Orders unchanged._

_Observe._

_Report._

_Requesting backup._

_Requesting Talent backup._

_The time is not yet right._

_Soon._

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t Fence Me In, as sung by Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters, was a hit in December, 1944. They finished the recording in just thirty minutes.


	3. It's Been a Long, Long Time

The first thing Natasha did was show them how to work the television. 

“Catching up on twentieth-century history is all well and good,” she said, fishing a little square out of a drawer, “but I’m going to have a word with Coulson.”

She showed them how the little remote worked and they could have only dreamed of owning a set back in the forties, let alone one in colour. There was also what she called a flash drive.

“Think of it,” she had said, “as a hundred movie theatres squashed down into this little stick.”

And it was. Hundreds of movies that he and Steve had lined up to see on the big screen here on their television. Bucky’s favourite was  _ The Maltese Falcon _ and that got put on first because, Bucky suspected, his head was in a mess.

What Natasha had said to him had got to him. It overwhelmed even the memory of finally getting Steve’s lips on his, and that really proved her wrong. Things did not have messed up heads or panic attacks. Things did not have therapists specialising in torture survivors or PTSD or PoWs. If he could make himself into a unfeeling object and escape all that then why wouldn’t he? Except…

He was taking up two-thirds of the sofa and Steve the rest. His head just brushed Steve’s thigh. And on the screen Sam Spade was saying, “All we’ve got is that maybe you love me and maybe I love you”. God bless Steve Rogers who knew exactly what it meant that Bucky nudged him with his head, just a little, just at that moment. If there was someone up there who chose who got Talents and who didn’t, then they made a mistake giving out so many to the Nazis and to Hydra. But they couldn’t have chosen better than Steve.

Steve’s hand closed round Bucky’s shoulder. A thing that pals did.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” The shrink on the tablet was very big on talking, on top of extra talking, so Bucky added on more. “Really fucking tired.”

“I know, Buck.”

No. God willing, he’d never know.

“I’m going to do it.” Which was a surprise even to him. But the words tumbled out without effort on his part. “The therapy thing with Natasha and Banner.”

“That’s great.”

Bucky rolled on his back to see that smile better. If they’d still been outside and out of camera range he could have done more than look. Further trips outside would be supervised, she said, but Bucky was sure they could evade for one or two minutes. Until then he had the memory of Steve’s kind weight pressing against him to keep him warm.

“You know, she reminds me of Peggy a bit,” said Steve. “How she carries herself. And she doesn’t look the kind of lady that would take any nonsense.” Meaning Bucky’s brand of flirty nonsense.

“Thought so too. She was so sweet on you. Peggy.”

Plain for all to see. Bucky like to think of himself as a generous fella, but there were definite limits. He’d done his due diligence by thrusting Steve at girls. Spent all that time wondering why none of them could appreciate him before taking over the job himself. Seven years into their relationship and he wouldn’t have given up Steve, even to the perfect girl. Had Peggy even had an inkling of what perfect camouflage she’d been?

“Are you trying to throw me at Natasha?”

“God, no. She’d eat you alive, Steve.”

The door gave a warning beep and Bucky sat up.

Agent Herbert could have been the double of Elmer Adams who lived round the corner from them and, aged ten, got his kicks from yanking on girls’ pigtails. He had the same close-cropped hair and the same big hands. He also had his usual sour look on. Banner had taken nearly getting his neck snapped a hell of a lot better than Herbert had taken one black eye.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, eyes racking over both Talents, “you’re not longer my problem. I just got this one thing to do then I’m shot of you.”

“It’s a miracle,” said Bucky, sub-vocalising to Steve.

“Hey, none of that. I can see your lips move. We talk at a normal volume here.”

“Je peux le faire.”

“Hilarious.”

“Se comporter,”  said Steve. 

“Doubly hilarious. Look do you want your shit or not?”

There were meeker SHIELD personnel behind him, one carrying a very familiar shield. The other had a thin cardboard box.

“This is everything we got out of the ice. So enjoy. You’re Romanov’s problem now.”

As soon as everyone else was out, Bucky ‘ported over to the kitchen counter. There was a receipt taped to the box which Bucky looked over.

**Items Recovered From Operation North**

  * One shield, vibranium
  * One set of dog-tags, name of Barnes, James Buchanan
  * One set of dog-tags, name of Rogers, Steven Grant
  * One notebook, some pages illegible
  * One compass
  * One photograph, family scene (restored)



And on reading that last one, Bucky immediately flipped opened the box and dug through until he found the square in a clear, plastic pocket. There, clear as day, was Mom and Dad and all three of the kids lined neatly up by height. And in the middle was himself, before all the bad shit happened, with his arm around Steve.

Carrying just a photo of his best friend would have been suspicious, but he’d had this one. In a family picture who would question if Steve was in there. Sure he was a solitary blond in among the dark Barnes clan, but not one of them would have said Steve wasn’t family.

“Bucky.”

He’d been quiet for too long, and Steve was hovering, all honest concern. Bucky scrubbed away a bit of moisture from his eyes and then turned the photo round.

“Remember this?”

There was that smile again.

“Was I really all nose like that?”

“Nose and eyes mostly. Like a bird.”

“Jerk.”

What Bucky would have liked to take with him was a picture like some of the fellas had of their girls. Something of just Steve all pale skin, narrow hips, bony shoulders. Or maybe now with his broad and powerful chest, but either way with that bold look he got when he was in the mood. But that wasn’t realistic.

So he propped up the picture on his nightstand and hoped it would be comforting rather than a grim reminder that five of the people in it were dead.

***

Positive Incident Number One: MOMA. While Rogers went into raptures over  _ Starry Night _ , Barnes broke off bodyguard detail to listen. He was much more relaxed for the entire trip, though he looked across at Natasha more than once to make sure she was keeping up  _ her _ guard details.

Positive Incident Two: Metropolitan Museum of Art. They’d been wandering among the Greek statuary when Barnes had paused in front of one in mid discus-throw and deadpanned “So this is where you got your ideas, Rogers”. And just like that they were both laughing, huddled together, trying to shush each other.

Panic attack number four happened in a grocery store.

Initially they’d been more interested in the store than all the museums and landmarks. It was the sheer amount of choice and the prices (“They want  _ how  _ much?” had been whispered more than once). But something had set Barnes off in the dairy aisle and the first anyone had known about it was when his hand snatched at Rogers’. There was no time to get him out, he sank to his knees, his free hand clasped over his mouth.

“It’s okay, okay,” said Rogers, already down on the floor with him. And then he went sub-vocal.

Unbelievably a young man in the aisle was already pointing his phone at them. Natasha hoped whoever invented the camera phone was being minorly inconvenienced in some way.

Bruce’s Talent was the last resort for violence. The very, very last resort when the civilian casualties Bruce would cause were less than the ones that Barnes might. Natasha had everything else. She always thought of her power living behind her eyes and she drew it out into her mouth. Rogers looked up at her as she did it, but of course Talents could sense most other Talents.

“ _ Go home _ ,” she said to the phone user. He dropped his wire basket from suddenly nerveless fingers and he marched forward, eyes blank and staring straight ahead.

“ _ Next aisle _ ,” she said to the mother with the two squalling kids in her cart.

“ _ Ignore them _ ,” to the man going to help Barnes up mid-attack.

Simple and direct orders with no ambiguity with Talent-backed power to drive them into each new curious bystander’s brain until-

“Natasha.” Rogers had draped his coat over Barnes’ head and had one arm around him too. “We should go.”

“Can he get up?”

“Yeah,” croaked Barnes. He emerged from the protective shield of Rogers’ coat looking ten pounds thinner. Around his mouth were small, dark bruises - the marks of his own fingertips. As his friend helped him up he shook from the effort and didn’t say anything else.

The headache bloomed in the deep recesses of Nathasha’s brain. She snagged a Coke on her way out, not waiting for change. The sugar helped a little. SHIELD agents had already brought the car round. By the time she’d got into the passenger seat, Barnes had fallen asleep against Rogers. Like turning off a computer when it froze.

“You’re a command Talent, aren’t you?”

“Amongst other things.” She dropped her empty Coke bottle into the footwell and fumbled for the emergency energy drinks in the glove compartment. “Takes it out of you but caffeine helps. Avoid these. They taste like sweat.”

Barnes shifted in his sleep. His head was on Rogers’ shoulder, Rogers’ arm around him.

“It doesn’t work on Talents and it doesn’t work for very long or on abstract concepts. So I can’t help James that way, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

A look of genuine horror crossed Rogers’ face.

“I wouldn’t ask! Not after what Hydra tried to do to him.”

“What did they try to do to him?” Not that it wasn’t spelt out in the files, but information in files could be edited or sanitised.

“Turn him into a weapon.” Rogers gave the man against him a sad look. “Put an image of Zola in his head to tell him that’s what he was.”

Interesting. Imaginary Zolas had certainly not been mentioned in the report. But Barnes had killed an illusion Talent in the hospital attack and in a particularly brutal fashion (head smashed into red paste on the floor). Not too hard to put two and two together and get four.

“He’s lucky to have you.”

It never hurt to throw out a compliment if it cost you nothing and allowed you to ingratiate yourself. The way to Barnes was most likely through Rogers.

“I wouldn’t be here without him. It’s the least I could do.”

Barnes slept right through to the next morning, fourteen straight hours, and was still groggy for his screen time with his therapist. He didn’t remember what set him off and Dr. Bidwell didn’t believe he was disassembling. Not remembering was not abnormal and sometimes a blessing.

***

**Secure connection established. Connection will terminate in 180 seconds.**

_ Wednesday. 11 am departure time. _

_ Chelsea Market. _

_ 23rd and 9th. _

_ Talent backup? _

_ Not required at this time. _

***

“So the grocery store didn’t pan out.” In the back mirror she observed Barnes not flinching but watching New York pass by. No flinching was good. “But Chelsea Market has all that and more. Plus we have SHIELD’s expense account.” A thought occurred to her. “Did Coulson get to credit cards? Okay, for now just think of it as a easier cheque book.”

“Hope you got enough to feed this one.” The bruises around Barnes’ mouth had faded to five yellow circles. Barnes was currently smiling, but the eyes were tired. That was a better mood than the last few days. “I remember when-”

In the driver’s seat, Agent Sarraf yelped in alarm and that was the only warning they got before the pickup rammed into them. Sarraf was killed on impact. Maybe they would have got Rogers too, but he’d taken the middle seat to fuss over Barnes. Their car ground to a halt, tangled up with the pickup.

“SHIELD! We are under attack! 23rd and 9th!”

Someone (white - male - medium height - heavy build) leant out of the passenger door with a gun but Natasha shot him through the throat. Her seatbelt was stuck.

“Received, Widow,” said the voice in her earpiece. “Help is inbound. ETA four minutes.”

Behind her the door open and Rogers tore the belt from its moorings. She scrambled quickly out, because two other cars had just disgorged more gunmen.

“Friends of yours?” said Rogers over the gunfire.

Their car and the pickup formed a V out in the horribly exposed road. Civilians were scattering and they left cars behind by those were in the direction of the gunmen (estimated numbers five to eight).

“I don’t think so. Where’s Barnes?”

As though summoned Barnes came round from the pickup, shoving a rifle into Natasha’s hands. Crouched with them, he was very calm and alert. Natasha knew all about that. Battle was a known quantity in a way that a grocery store was not.

“Help’s four minutes away.” Through New York traffic. “We need to get off the street.”

“Like in Achkarren,” said Barnes, cradling the gun in his hands. 

“Okay, Buck.” Rogers nodded. “I can shield us, Natasha. Bucky can draw them off.”

Barnes was an unknown quantity, but Rogers was the only one left unaffected by the amnesia field.

“Make it fast.” There were shapes moving in between the cars. Not the panicked movement of civilians. She fired a quick burst over the crumpled bonnets.

Rogers tugged on the open car door.

“This’ll do. I wish I had my usual though.” He stood up a bit, keeping his head out of the line of fire, and gripped the door to pull it off. Moving meant that the bullet took him through the gut instead of his head.

 

***

Didn’t Howard and Peggy and Bucky himself try to drill into Steve’s head that he wasn’t bulletproof? They were surrounded by high-rise buildings: the perfect sniper’s nest. Bucky caught him as he fell and he was cold like all the heat was draining out from him from the hole in his stomach. Natasha was firing through the car. And above them, voices.

He sat Steve against the car, touching his cheek just briefly.

“Look after him.”

“James-”

“-you miss, idiot, he was right there.” A living room with a sofa shoved away at an awkward angle and a sniper rifle on the dining table pointing through the window and down into the street. Two men: sniper and spotter.

“Eyes up. I’ve lost-”

The one with the gun he threw through the window, the scream fading rapidly. That left one.

He raised his pistol and it was pathetically easy to slide in and snap the arm holding it. Back in the day assassins used to have a poison capsule in their teeth. Bucky felt nothing about grabbing the man’s lower jaw and wrenching it out of its setting. Breaking his back made him feel nothing too. These were merely steps to saving Steve. He was his shield after all.

***

“Captain Rogers is down. GSW. Requesting medical.” She couldn’t tell whether the bullet had gone straight through. What she did know was that the Talent Shield was meant to be very durable. Barnes was away, and she knew he was dealing with the sniper. That meant the ones on the ground for her. She stripped off her coat, bundling it up against Rogers’ wound. The blood was steaming in the chill.

“Stay here. I’ve got this.”

Incredibly he still tried to get up, going even paler with the effort of it. Was this what Barnes had to put up with in the war? She just needed a distraction. On cue a man was flung out of the building behind them and fell to the sidewalk with a sickening thud. And Natasha rounded the car and disappeared.

Back in the war it had come to light that invisibility was not all that great. The thing people forgot was that if light passed through your body it also passed through the rods and cones in your eyes that allowed you to see. What was much more useful was to give off a signal that made people  _ think _ you were invisible.  Drawback to that Talent was that drawing attention to yourself to put a stop to that, but the number one lesson of the Red Room had been to strike first and with the right move.

She slid through the gaps between cars to find her first victim (black - male - very tall) creeping closer to Rogers’ position. He had two friends in close proximity. So what she did was squeeze off one shot at the middle one, while at the same time, kicking her new friend off-balance and dragging him round to absorb the answering fire and fire again and again and shove her shield forward and drop her empty gun and grab his and dart to cover while laying down covering fire. Easy as that.

A single shot boomed out from high up. Barnes the sniper at work.

She slid back into invisibility again. The next two were pressed against the metal body of a car and she pressed her palm against it and sent the electric shock through them. Two shots and down two more opponents.

More gunfire but from a different direction and thank fuck for SHIELD STRIKE teams.

“Here!” she shouted, holding up her hands, distinctive red hair visible. There were dead bodies and shot-up cars everywhere and now the guns had stopped she could hear the sirens and the screams. She felt the fatigue as well. Too many Talent powers in too short a time. An evening spent in an MRI scanner was looming in the near future.

“Nat!” They’d even brought Banner in his SHIELD-issued outfit, jacket zipped up over the branding. He took her by the arm but she shook her head.

“Rogers?”

“Medical’s with him.”

They were and Rogers looked even worse. The bullet was definitely still inside him. He was so pale and his shirt and trousers were soaked right through with blood. No screams, just the sight of his gritted white teeth.

“Where’s Barnes?”

One building down, the front door opened and Barnes stepped out. He was dragging a man  behind him, one dressed in anonymous hoodie and jeans. Parts of his body were not moving correctly. Barnes face was practically serene and that worried Natasha more than anything. That serene expression said  _ asset - asset - asset _ . So that was  why they’d brought Bruce, the last resort, along.

But all Barnes did was drop the man (broken jaw - broken arm - broken back) at Natasha’s feet. He knelt by Steve and took up his hand.

***

He couldn’t turn himself back into a thing, but at this moment it was too painful to be a person, no matter what Natasha said. He craved the serene detachment when he ( _ snap of bones under bare hands, under booted foot _ ) went up there. Everything was too much. And by everything he meant Steve. Everything but Steve was out of focus and Steve was magnified. Steve filled the world and the air tasted of his coppery blood ( _ SteveSteveSteve _ ).

They couldn’t stop him. If it meant anything to be a ( _ Mad _ ) Talent then it was that no one could stop him from following that stretcher with his heart on it. They were putting wires and tubes into him, blood in a bag.

Steve was made for him. Yes, for flag and country too, but he’d warped reality himself to get into the Army and back to Bucky. The least Bucky could do was to follow him. To keep going and-

Someone planted their hands on his chest and suddenly the world washed over him. People yelling. Hospital smell. The trundle of Steve’s gurney as it passed a final set of double doors.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t come into surgery. You’ll have to wait out here.”

“But-”

“Out here,” she repeated. “Sit here and wait.”

And then she was gone too. Armed guards - again - took up stances on either side of the doors. The smell of disinfectant and hospital filled Bucky’s nose, but, for once, Zola’s lab was the last thing on his mind. He was listening to the brisk talk of nurses and doctors and the noise of Steve’s flesh and faltering heart.

Steve.

***

Bruce nervously approached the corridor. He kept thinking of Barnes walking out of that building, dragging a man along behind him. That man was already somewhere in SHIELD’s warm and loving grip and preliminary medical reports were grim to say the least. But the Barnes sat there watching the door was the most lost person that Bruce had ever seen. He looked like a man who didn’t know what hit him.

“Hi, Sergeant Barnes.”

Barnes blinked a couple of times and half-turned towards him. But he kept the door in his eyeline. His hands and wrists and shirt were bloody.

“Are you-” Okay would be the wrong thing to say. “Are you injured?”

A head shake.

“That’s good.” He kept his voice soft and reassuring. They didn’t give out PhDs in not setting people off, but Bruce could have qualified. “He’s in surgery?”

That caused a muscle to jump in Barnes’ jaw, but he also nodded once.

“We’re in New York-Presbyterian. They’re going to take very good care of him.” Now for the difficult bit. “They’re keeping SHIELD, that’s us not- They’re keeping us updated and I’m passing it on to you.”

No response, but Bruce could feel him listen more intently.

“The bullet’s still inside him and it may have fragmented. He’s critical but he’s stable.” For now. “His Talent’s keeping him going.”

Barnes seemed to slowly process all the information and then turned back to watch the door. There was a splash of blood high up on one cheek too.

“Would you like to go wash up?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s just you are covered in blood. I brought you a new shirt.”

Barnes turned his hands over, as if noticing the blood for the first time. It was probably mostly Rogers’ now that Banner thought about it.

“I have to stay here.”

Natasha thought that this might happen. But you didn’t have to be a trained spy to notice that Barnes and Rogers had been-  _ were  _ protective of each other.

“I can watch for you.” He dug into a pocket for Natasha’s present and held it out. “If there’s any change I can call you. It’s a phone,” he added. “You don’t have to know the details, but if it makes a noise and you see my name on it, you’ll know to come back here. I won’t move from this spot. I promise.”

Barnes stared down at it for three long heartbeats, then he wiped one hand on his shirt and took it delicately from him.

“Thank you, Banner.”

“Well. We freaks have to stick together.” He held out the plastic bag with the shirt in and Barnes took that too.

“I’m sorry. For what happened on the first day. I don’t think I…”

“Rogers did on your behalf. It’s fine, Sergeant Barnes. You couldn’t have hurt me anyway.”

Barnes got up like an old man, cradling the phone in one hand, taking one last look at the door.

“It’s Bucky.”

***

There was a lot of blood. One streak had even got on his face. It was Steve’s blood. The same blood he’d wiped from split lips and cuts and the same blood Steve had shed on the battlefield. He scrubbed with hot water and the caustic soup they had.

In the war, Steve had been clipped more times than they could count and shot twice. Those had been straight-through shots and sealed up within a day or so. And none of them had been through the gut like this.

Banner had got him one of his SHIELD-issued shirts. It was blue, which was the colour that Steve liked best on him. He threw the old one in the bin. Getting rid of Steve’s blood on him made him feel less sick, but he didn’t feel better until he could see the door again. Just like he promised, Banner was on guard.

“Thank you, Banner.” Steve would have been disappointed if Bucky had forgotten his manners.

“Oh, it’s Bruce. If you like.”

“Thank you, Bruce.”

“He’s still stable. It’s fragmented but they’re going to get all the parts. It’s just that there’s a lot of important stuff in that area.”

“Yes.”

“I’m worried about you, Bucky.” Which he had heard many times out of Steve’s own mouth, sometimes serious, sometimes not. “If something happens… Are you going to hurt yourself?”

“No. It would be quick.” What would be the point of prolonging it?

“We might not be able to stop you, we know that.” Banner’s (Bruce’s) hand touched him on the shoulder. In the future how many people had done that? Only Steve had run his hands down Bucky’s back to his waist and pressed his lips to his. “I know what it means to be low. Like very low. We’re here. Me and Natasha.”

“How is Natasha?” He hadn’t even asked. He’d seen her shoot with that Carter-esque cool, but he’d left her with Steve.

“She’s fine. She’s with… the one you brought down.”

Good. She looked like the kind of woman used to getting information out of people. He should have left her the shooter instead.

Bruce patted him once. He returned to the opposite facing chair, tucking his jacket around him.

“I think you need some company. We can wait together if you like.”

It wasn’t as though Bucky was going to haul off and shoot himself through the head immediately, even if he didn’t see the point of living in the future without Steve. But it was nice to have human company underneath the flickering lights.

***

Bruce read out the text updates to Bucky who accepted them with a nod. They downgraded Rogers’ condition to serious. And then they brought him out. Bucky immediately glued himself to the stretcher. Bruce found himself being swept alone in between the guards and the stretcher. Rogers looked very pale and somehow smaller yet heavier at the same time.

“There’s a lot of you,” said the surgeon, glaring at her new entourage.

“Sorry, doctor. Giving the circumstances, there’ll have to be an armed presence at all times.” And the vetting, and the careful prying. It was a relief to cram into an elevator and stop moving for a second.

“And him?” she said, looking across at Bucky. He’d slid a hand past the medical personnel to touch Rogers on the arm. His eyes were taking in the oxygen mask, the tubes, the cannula.

“Next of kin.”

Ever since the forties, they’d been listed as the other’s closest family, and SHIELD had carried that information over onto new shiny forms. Bruce couldn’t imagine what Barnes would do (to himself or others) if he were denied a place at Rogers’ bedside.

They brought Rogers to his bed. Barnes took the chair and planted himself as if fearing he’d be moved. His eyes were focused on Rogers, his hand on Rogers’ forehead.

“Right.” The surgeon planted her hand on her hips. Her hair was tied into a wheel on the back of her head. “All the fragments are out. There was damage to the kidney, stomach, and large intestine. Some of that’s from moving him, but what choice did you have, right? For now he’s healing and that means sleep. He won’t wake up for a while, but we’re positive. More positive than we’d be for an ordinary person.”

Barnes’ lips were moving, talking to Rogers. His face was twisted with worry and relief.

“Thank you, doctor.”

“It’s him, isn’t it? The first one.” She dug into a scrub pocket and pulled out a set of dog tags. “We took these off him. Unless he’s into vintage jewelry, I think I’ve just stitched together a ninety-year-old man.”

Army dog-tags for Talents included the codename and the little star. And everyone knew the story of Shield (Talent, not organisation).

“We haven’t gone public yet, doctor.”

“You won’t hear anything from us.” She looked at Barnes, and of course there were so many pictures of Shield with Winter there too. “Winter?”

A small missing slice of memory, and Barnes was with them, putting Rogers’ dog-tags over his own head. He tucked them gently into his own shirt, and then he was clasping the surgeon’s hand with both of his.

“Thank you, doctor. He’s all I got.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, the tiniest flush appearing on her face.

Another missing memory and Bucky Barnes was settled next to Steve Rogers for the long wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Je peux le faire - I can do that
> 
> Se comporter - Behave yourself
> 
> It’s Been a Long, Long Time was originally written in 1932 but the version by Harry James and Kitty Kallen became a hit in November 1945. The lyrics are written from the perspective of a someone welcoming their loved one home from war. It’s actually the song playing in Cap’s apartment in Captain America: Winter Soldier just before he sees Bucky for the first time.


	4. Blues In the Night (My Mama Done Tol' Me)

“What’s the verdict?”

Natasha didn’t bother turning on the light. A little came through the one way mirror and this space was blissfully dim. After the scans - all clear - she’d downed two aspirin, but the room next door was very bright by design.

Some Talents got lucky with nice easy abilities. Flying might be just a matter of jumping, lifting a car might be as easy as picking up a pencil. But others got saddled (or forced into) abilities that put so much pressure on the brain that it risked aneurysm or stroke. Natasha never saw the point in moping about it. It taught restraint.

“Bruce?” she prompted.

“Bad.”

“How bad is bad?”

“Well.” Bruce paused and she could picture him on the other end of the phone line adjusting his glasses or any of his other thousand nervous habits. “I asked Bucky whether he was going to hurt himself, if Rogers didn’t… you know.”

Bucky instead of Barnes.

“And?”

“He said it would be quick.”

Natasha swore in Russian, leaning back in her chair. The ceiling had a brown stain up in one corner. How did these things get up there?

“Did you report it in?”

“Well…” She could feel Bruce waver.

“Listen. Do you think he’ll let anyone take him into a psychiatric hold? Away from Rogers?”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“But SHIELD would have to try. But if you don’t report it then he’ll stay there surrounded by doctors.” She sat up. “And that’s good.”

“He doesn’t like hospitals.”

“Nothing’s happened in this one. Maybe they smelt or looked different in the forties. Who knows? But he’s safe. He’s with his reason to live and no force on Earth will get him out of that room.”

“Okay. Okay, I won’t say anything. But if he gets worse-”

“I’ll call you. And you’ll call me.”

“You better! Because I have a lot of research on Talent-” He cleared his throat, pitching his voice low. “On Talent suicide rates.”

He did not mention his personal experience in the matter.

“We’ll swap reports this evening. I’ll see you later.”

Once her phone was back in her pocket, she went back to leaning. Darkness was good, and the throbbing in her temples had abated, but what she needed was sleep. Not as much as Rogers though.

“Agent Romanov.”

Agent Dellinger was in the doorway, waving a file at her. Back in the hall Romanov took it, trying not to blink in the light like some sort of cave creature. But all was forgotten as she read the neat print.

“Dellinger, is it Christmas already?”

“Not yet, m’am. But the bakery on my block is selling pumpkin pie slices already.”

The other side of the one-way mirror was of course the interrogation room. Under its harsh lights, the damage Barnes had done and the hasty repairs were laid out bare. His jaw was wired shut and still off-kilter. White plaster enclosed his right arm (radius and ulna both broken cleanly). And he was strapped into the chair because he would never use his legs again. He had some movement still in his left arm, but refused to write anything down. If only she could spit commands at him, but it always worked poorly with the written word. People thought less about blurting things out.

“Hi.” Natasha settled into the chair opposite, stretching out her legs. “Comfortable? Can we get you anything? Some heavy-duty painkillers maybe?”

That had been the first thing his uncooperation had cost him. What he had was one tiny step above Tylenol and his skin was greenish with nausea. He had quite an expressive glower though.

“Not even a name?” She laid out her file, brushing an imaginary spot of dust from the beige card. “But you have so many to choose from. Daniel T. Berg. Alan Sommers. Rustam Alexandrov. Sound familiar? But the very first one we have is Larry Baker. Stole a car when you were fourteen. And I know that juvenile records are meant to be sealed, but that doesn’t really matter to SHIELD. So Larry. How does a car thief from,” a brief theatrical pause, “Reno come to be involved in an assassination in New York? I bet it’s an interesting story. And we have all the time in the world to dig it out.”

***

Steve Rogers was installed in his own room, television and en suite included. Not that he was using them at the moment. Armed guards stood outside his door and patrolled the corridor. And at all times he was under the watch of James Buchanan Barnes.

As Bruce headed over, he could see another reason why they could never extract Bucky from this ward. He was standing in the doorway, a nurse in scrubs with him.

“What brings you to our corner of the world, beautiful?”

That was the voice of the Bucky of the pre-war years, who Natasha had described as a pretty boy with a cocky mouth. Not that Bruce was jealous. It was a drastic change from the Bucky of the present day who was quiet and withdrawn most of the time.

“Well it’s silly really.” The nurse was fifty if she was a day, but blushing like a schoolgirl. “But I was home and I remembered what you’d told Marie about reading to your boy when he was sick. My Jason’s long left home, so I don’t think he’ll mind if I lend this to you.”

She held out a battered paperback, so well-loved that the spine was concave. Bucky touched it with his fingertips, his face lit up.

“Jean. You are an angel sent from heaven.” And he bent down to kiss her on the cheek.

“Mr. Barnes, I’m a married woman.” Though Jean didn’t seem to mind very much. She pressed the book into Bucky’s hands.

“He’s a lucky fella. I promise I’ll return this. Steve won’t let me forget.”

“Keep it as long as you want, honey.”

Bucky withdraw back into the room and when Jean passed Bruce in the corridor she was practically floating. If they tried to remove Bucky from here there’d be a riot from the female staff.

He tapped on the door. Bucky’s expression, when he lifted his head, was a familiar one. Tired. Worn. Grim.

“How is he?”

Steve Rogers was still asleep, unchanged from the past two days. Sunlight fell in bars through the blinds, turning his hair and eyelashes into gold. One chair was pulled up to his bedside and that was where Bucky had planted himself.

“Sleeping.”

He reached over and patted Rogers’ hand, eyes fixed on his face. Looking for a reaction but not getting one.

“The doctors seem happy with his vitals, don’t they?” Bucky nodded once, still looking at Rogers. The book was in his lap. “What’ve you got there?”

It turned out to be a battered copy of _The Hobbit_. A dragon was coiled onto a heap of gold on the cover. There’d been a Talent who could change into a dragon over in the Philippines. Neither Shield or Winter would have met him. They’d been in the European theatre the entire time.

There were probably no knives or guns smuggled between the pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's first novel. But he wouldn’t need them. The roof of the hospital wasn’t too far away.

“Why this one?”

Bucky took the book back. Automatically he turned to the first page, his fingers resting under the first line. _In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit_.

“He was really sick in 1938. Influenza. Couple of years after he got pneumonia. They thought-” Something caught in his throat. Bruce knew the story, about how many times Shield had nearly died before he ever saw a battlefield. “He was sick. And I got him this so I could read to him when he couldn’t sleep for the coughing. Doctors said to keep talking to him.”

Talking to Rogers was something he could do just fine, Bruce thought. It was talking to other people that was harder, even the short, clipped sentences that he directed at people. He could see it in the way he curled up in his chair, attention slipping away to his captain again.

“Why don’t you have a shower?”

Someone had to sit with Rogers. There were armed guards, but they were human, and in Bucky’s mind only another Talent would do. So Bruce came down for the morning and Natasha the evening. During the morning shift, Bucky would shower, change, and maybe even take a brief trip outside the room. The record was forty feet away, down to the nurses’ station. Natasha’s evening shift was supposed to be therapy time, but instead it had become an hour of uninterrupted sleep on the cot SHIELD had provided.

At night, according to the guards, Bucky slept in a series of cat naps, fifteen to thirty minutes at a time. Between those brief instances he would check the windows, the door, and Steve Rogers. A human could survive like that for a while. In Bruce’s opinion, Bucky could do it for a few more days. It was a miracle that he’d not had a panic attack followed by one of his day-long naps. None had been reported so far, thank goodness. Bruce didn’t think the Other Guy knew about restraint.

“Oh!”

Another nurse was in the door. Her name tag said ‘Beth’, she was in her forties and her hair was coloured red at the ends.

“I’m sorry. I thought Mr. Barnes would be here.”

They all called him Mr. Barnes, not Sergeant. And the only dog tags he wore were Rogers’.

“He’s just taking a shower. I’m a friend from work.”

Friend wasn’t entirely accurate. It was easier to tell people though than “Talent trusted to watch over Steve Rogers”. Although Bucky considered this man all he had in the world. Maybe that was a start to friendship.

“That’s very kind. We just had some brownies brought over to the nurses’ station and we’re happy to share.” She fiddled with the ends of her hair. “I don’t know how close you are, but… Well a brownie isn’t a substitute for fresh air. If you can get him to go outside for a little while he’ll feel much better.”

“I’ll let him know.”

Beth left satisfied. But Talent or not, Bruce couldn’t perform the impossible. Not outside his particular brand of impossible anyway.

It was too quiet in this room with only the occasional hum of the machines and Rogers’ slow breathing. Quiet meant thoughts could sneak up on you. Especially the dark ones. The best thing was a distraction. _The Hobbit_ would help, but Bucky would still keep his focus on Rogers - _“He’s all I got”_ \- and spiral.

Bucky’s new phone was on the table next to his tablet. He’d calmly accepted every lesson: how to make calls, how to connect with his therapist, how to charge both machines.

“What are you doing?”

Bucky emerged with his damp hair pushed back and his skin flushed with the heat of the water. No wonder he was so popular here.

“I’m putting something on your phone.”

He frowned a little then gave up on it in favour of going to his friend. One hand landed delicately on Rogers’ shoulder. He was doing that sub-vocalising thing, and maybe there was another reason the nurse wanted to share their brownies other than seeing a good-looking guy. Even in such a short time, he looked thinner in the face.

“The nurses have brownies out there if you want to go.” Nice high-calorie brownies, each mouthful keeping the wolves from the door. Maybe he could swing by a Starbucks tomorrow and bring him something.

“Still worried about me?” He didn’t sound angry, just tired. The hand on Rogers’ shoulder tightened its grip briefly.

“Yes.” The app was prompting Bruce to pick some favourite music so he tapped on anything with a black-and-white picture. Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald. “But you probably think we should be more worried about Rogers.”

“Steve.” He took his hand back at last to rub at his mouth. There was still the faintest ghosts of bruises around his mouth. “Everyone calling him Rogers makes it sound like the Army again.”

“And you don’t like that.”

“He’s not the Army’s any more.” And Bruce noted how Bucky turned his body so that he was between Bruce and Steve.

“You know. You never did ask for details. When I said I was low.”

“Figured that was your business. We were in a war.” _We_ and not _I_. “And there’s some things that guys don’t like to talk about. Even if they didn’t get as fucked up as I did.”

“Well, it was pretty damn low. Like the kind you don’t see a way out of. So I put a gun in my mouth.” Bucky gave him a sharp look. Had that been how he planned to do it? “Didn’t take. I’m glad it didn’t now.”

Bucky was watching him.

“Why?” he said finally.

“My Talent’s connected to rage. Lose my temper one day and well I could end up hurting people.”

Bruce wondered if the man across from him remembered panic attack number three and the shattered furniture. From the shadow that fell over his pale eyes, he’d guess someone had told him.

“Will you watch him?”

“Yes, of course.”

Bucky pointedly did not look at his friend as he left the room.

***

The brownie was pretty good. Bucky chose to eat it in a side corridor, taking slow bits and forcing himself to taste it. When he didn’t leave Steve’s room people started to stare at him with an expression half-pity and half-fear. And that was ridiculous because what was a ( _headcase_ ) guy supposed to do in this situation? Steve had been _encouraged_ to sit by his bedside back in 1943. But then again Steve wasn’t going to be teleporting around the hospital.

So he spent carefully calculated periods away from Steve, though no one could know that he was always watching over him. Steve’s heartbeat was still the slow, even beat of dreamless sleep. If it changed he would be at his side in an instant. He licked a crumb off his finger and continued counting down until it wouldn’t be weird to go back.

Down the corridor, a door opened.

“And if you make it down the other end of the corridor,” said a voice just as plummy as Peggy Carter’s though the wrong gender, “then yes, you may have this bag of Haribo. Which, I do not doubt, are full of corn syrup and E numbers.”

“But I could have the Haribo now.” The other British voice stuttered like little Gladys Peel in Bucky’s building used to. Could became cuh-cuh-could, Haribo (whatever that was) became Ha-ha-haribo.

“You must earn your disgusting treats.”

A tall Indian man exited the room with an arm around a smaller blond one. The blond had that grey and shaky look that Bucky had seen before. Steve - the younger, sicker Steve - had looked like that rising from his sickbed.

“Down to the end?” (Duh-duh-down)

“Just past the gentleman down there, yes.”

Bucky, the gentleman in question, watched as the pair slowly inched their way down the hall. He shouldn’t stare but there was something in the blond guy’s determined expression that again reminded him of the younger, sicker Steve. He’d done this with him more than once, helping him down to the shower or towards an open window. He smiled just a little as the pair made it.

“Well done.” The taller man extracted a package of brightly coloured sweets from his pocket and held them out. “Now what have we learnt?”

“No shellfish buffets?”

“Exactly. And no food poisoning.” And then he leant down and kissed him. Right on the lips.

The _idiots_! Didn’t they know how dangerous it was doing that where anyone could see? Bucky was going to leap up and separate them with his bare hands. He was going to tell them about the Gearhart boy who’d had a broken bottle shoved inside him and do you think the police…

But people were passing by and no one gave a shit. No one even batted an eye. Nobody cared. It wasn’t time yet, but Bucky ‘ported himself straight to Steve’s side.

“Bruce-”

There was music coming from his phone. Dick Haymes was singing about how he’d get by even through rain and darkness too.

“I thought that you and Steve would like some music,” said Bruce. “It’s Harry James.”

“James is the band leader,” Bucky said automatically. “It’s Dick Haymes singing. 1944.” Just last year, but also seventy years ago.

_(“How do you still have two left feet, Rogers?”_

_“Not all of us got our spines replaced with rubber bands, Buck.”_

_“Look you just put your hands here and here and- Don’t try and get out of this with kissing, you are learning to dance if it kills me.”)_

“It’s on your phone. The internet. Think of it like a radio station you can control.”

Bruce passed it over. There was a list of songs on the screen and God he remembered necking with Steve in the long summer evenings to the sound of Blue Champagne on the radio. In private, in their apartment. Never in public, not even a chaste kiss like-

“Bruce. Outside there were two guys.” He had to be so careful. They’d always had to be so careful. And he would have to find some girl to throw them all off just like he’d done in the thirties and forties even as it hurt Steve because no suspicion could fall on them. “And they kissed.”

“Oh? Oh, right. Um. That’s… different to your day, right?”

Depends on where you looked. Bucky did not look at Steve. He was Steve’s shield even in this.

“So yes, guys can do that now. Girls too, and it’s okay. Well, mostly. There’s always- But it’s legal. They can even get married.”

_(“I’d marry you in a heartbeat, Buck.” Tangled together in their sheets, Bucky’s hand on Steve’s side, fingers slotted into the gaps between prominent ribs._

_“The whole neighbourhood would turn out to see you carry me over the threshold.”_

_“I still would!” Stubborn set to Steve’s jaw, eyes bright, how come girls never saw how good he looked?_

_“I know. So would I.”)_

“Huh,” is what Bucky said. “Good for them.”

“It is.”

Bruce got out of the chair, taking his jacket and bag from the back. Bucky tried to imitate his friendly smile despite how his head was swimming.

“You’ll be okay? Give me a call if you need anything.” Which is what he said every time he left.

“Thank you, Bruce.”

He walked Bruce to the door and waited. The phone in his hands switched to Glenn Miller and he chatted to Steve about when they’d heard he’d been lost over the English Channel. Then when one of the guards peered through the door’s window to check on them he counted to one hundred before putting his hand onto Steve’s and lacing their fingers together.

“Hey, handsome,” he said in their secret sub-vocal way. “What do you think of that? You better wake up soon, you punk. I got something to ask you.”

***

_ORDERS ACKNOWLEDGED._

_ACTIVATING CHRYSALIS._

_TRIGGER PHRASE BEGINS._

_PEAK. REMAIN. SIXTY. TRANSMISSION. INDUSTRY. FOURTEEN. PLASTER. DISTRICT. BANISH._

_GOOD MORNING, CHRYSALIS._

***

Bucky waited for Steve. He experimented with the music. He could type in names and find more. New songs turned up on the list Bruce had made. Some he liked, some he didn’t. And still Steve slept.

He made his report to Dr. Bidwell when she appeared on his tablet for their usual session. He brought up the two British guys, just in case, but Dr. Bidwell wasn’t shocked.

“Yes,” she said, “it’s quite accepted socially these days. Some holdouts but aren’t there always?”

Dr. Bidwell had warm dark skin and wore a succession of brightly coloured jewellery that no one would have got away with in the forties.

“How did seeing that make you feel?” she prompted. She was very firm about talking about feelings.

“Better,” he replied slowly, because no one could know yet, not until he talked to Steve. “It’s nice to see the future being a bit kinder to folks.”

And then he went back to reading out loud. He’d rediscovered the deep rumble he used to do the voice of Smaug in.

“I’m not five years old, Buck,” Steve had said ( _wheezed_ ), but he’d smiled whenever Bucky had done it.

Someone knocked sharply at the door and Dr Holliman stepped in. She was Steve’s main doctor, a sweet-faced woman with dark curly hair tamed into a bun.

Bucky put the book down, gathering his limbs underneath him.

“Good afternoon, everyone. How are we today?”

A Talent was pouring off her like light.

“You’re not Holliman.”

Her face twisted just a second before her hand whipped out of her pocket and Bucky had just enough time for the bare details (sharp edges - Steve’s bare throat) before he ‘ported himself forward. Her fingers, jagged claws of fingers, pierced the meat of his shoulder and he threw her through the door into the corridor. No time to let her recover. He followed and slammed her into the wall so hard that it cracked.

Her face jumped. Her mouth tumbled on one side, her left eye fell onto her left cheek and it all still worked. The mouth still stretched into a grin when she stretched out impossibly long arms and killed the two guards on either side of the door.

Don’t let them get to Steve. Bucky grabbed and pulled and they were like fucking _taffy_ . He tore them off with his bare hands. Fake Holliman screamed, her Picasso face twisting up, and there was the _third_ guard.

“Barnes! Get back!”

He leapt back, but, God she was _fast_ , and she ran towards the bullets, new claws appearing, and she killed the third agent. By the time Bucky got to her, she was facing him and her face had blanked and changed.

“Sergeant!” growled Fake Steve. Didn’t even give Bucky a moment’s pause. Even as a headcase he knew the real Steve.

They fought in a tangle down the corridor. Blaring alarms and screaming civilians didn’t even register. There was only the pain of claws in Bucky’s flesh, the give of the enemy Talent as he drove his fingers into familiar blue eyes. No pain yet. There was only the all-encompassing need to get it away from _Steve_.

Arms like rubber crushed Bucky’s chest, his neck. The weight dragged him down. Couldn’t teleport with this much weight on him. He kicked and stamped on bones that snapped instantly back into place. He bit and fought for air and his vision started to grey at the edges.

Natasha shot Fake Steve through the forehead. That did it. Air rushed into Bucky’s lungs as the arms - as Steve’s face - withered away.

“Thanks,” he wheezed out.

But then the creature - like a skeleton covered in wax - hissed out one last thing. Even with a hole through its brain.

“Hail… Hydra.”

***

Barnes made a thin noise like a wounded animal. The whites of his eyes were visible all the way round and blood was running down his arms and face and soaking through his shirt.

“James-” But it was too late. She ran to Rogers’ room, already calling SHIELD.

“Incident at hospital. Enemy Talent down.” She passed the bodies of the guards and a fleeing nurse with her arms around a patient. “Agents down. Barnes injured.”

Barnes was leaning over Rogers. He was tearing at the tubes and IVs, breath harsh and ragged.

“James, stop that!”

“I need to get him out.” There were bloody handprints on the sheet and on Rogers’ fair skin. “We need to leave.”

“You’re hurting him.” And that got him to stop, wires wrapped around his fist. “James, please, we need to get you some medical attention.”

Natasha took one step forward and Barnes whirled to block her from his friend. His pupils were pin-pricks, his hands curled into fists. She knew that stance. _Mine. Mine, mine, mine. My mission, my handler. My base programming. Mine._ Her hands were empty and she showed them to him, palms out.

“We’re not going to hurt you or Steve.” Use Barnes’ own name for Rogers, use Rogers himself as an anchor to bring him back down to Earth. Use Rogers as a handler, dig into whatever Hydra tried to leave inside his brain. Fear of pain, fear of _separation_ , Natasha would use all this and more because if SHIELD saw him like this they would put him in a cage.

Far away there was crying and screaming and the sound of police sirens. In this room Barnes’ harsh near-sobs of breath was the only sound.

Most of the panic attack was lost to his amnesia effect. But when it ended there were fingers marks scored deeply into the floor. And of course there was blood.

There was a sleeping bag on the cot and she turned to get it because the man was trembling violently. But he was fast and when she turned back, Barnes had managed to drag himself up onto the bed next to Rogers. His head pressed itself to Rogers’ shoulder, and if this were a story that would be when Rogers’ eyes would open to perform panic-attack aftercare. But it wasn’t and Barnes lay there shuddering.

“It’s going to be okay, James.” Under Natasha’s hand, he was very cold but harmless. For now. “Come on. You’re bleeding on him.”

“How am I going to tell him?” he rasped. “We killed ourselves stopping them.”

“Start with the truth and the rest will follow.” What did they say about people who couldn’t take their own advice?

She got him half up and he twisted to touch Rogers’ face and left red streaks where he touched him.

“Maybe we should have stayed in the ice, Steve.”

***

Other agents came. So did steady-handed doctors to stitch up a pliant Barnes. He refused all anaesthesia. Bodies vanished into SHIELD’s embrace. Banner appeared as did Fury. Police officers muttered about jurisdiction. No one noticed Steven Rogers’ eyes flutter open for just a moment.

***

Barnes said nothing, not even to people who he’d gently flirted with just that morning. Dr. Bidwell was called and she got no words out of him either.

“Can you flash fingers at me, Bucky? On a scale on one to ten, what’s your level of anxiety?”

Ten fingers.

“Same scale, how much danger are you in?”

Ten fingers.

“Yes or no now, are your-”

And Barnes put the tablet face-down. He walked across the new room to the new chair next to the new bed and sat down. He pillowed his head on his folded arms and he just switched off.

“That doesn’t look comfortable,” said Bruce softly. He had his coffee in one hand (extra shot of espresso) and took a sip.

“Do you know what the Red Room would have done to get that?”

She heard Bruce choke on his drink.

“Um. To get what?”

“An asset like that.” A biologically reeducated Talent with both power and loyalty. To get something like Barnes and Rogers, the Red Room would have killed, giving those deaths about as much thought as normal people did to swatting a fly. “If Rogers wanted to, he could bring the world under heel without anyone noticing.”

“I don’t think Steve is that kind of man.”

“Steve?”

“Bucky said he didn’t like the surnames. It reminded him of the Army.”

In this position Barnes - Bucky - was in contact with Steve. The top of his head rested against Steve’s arm. Bucky Barnes had been right. If he had to be an asset, it was best to be Steve Rogers’ asset. She thought of Bucky pressing to Steve’s side for comfort. She thought of him touching his face gently.

“Am I a bad therapist, Bruce?”

“No, Nat. I think we’re just out of our league on this one. What?” he added as Natasha curled her fingers around his laptop.

“You have the stuff from the forties on your laptop right?”

“Forties?” He took another swig from his cup, grimacing. “Yeah, I have the archival footage.” It was refreshing how he immediately pushed his laptop over to her without asking unnecessary questions.

She could use any video so she chose the first one, the big reveal of Shield. The Army had brought Barnes in as a surprise (and a rich source of intel) and the moment he set eyes on the new Steve Rogers was famous. He’d burst into hearty laughter and, to the delight of many a schoolkid, you could clearly see him mouth “holy shit!” at his friend. They were posed together at the end of the video for the cameras and Steve put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, just like friends did. But the look Bucky gave him as he lifted his head, and the look he got in return-

Natasha had been trained to notice slight changes in emotion and body language, but how had no one seen it before? Millions of people had watched this footage.

“Oh my God.”

***

His mouth was dry. There was something wrapped around his waist and something resting on his arm. Opening his eyes revealed a dim room. A hospital. He always could tell. What was resting on his arm was Bucky.

Bucky looked thinner and tired even while sleeping. Someone had got him a long-sleeved shirt, but there were bandages visible where the cuffs and collar gaped. Someone had _hurt_ him. Deep down, Steve worried that it had been Bucky himself. All that escaped his throat was a weak croak, but it was enough.

He’d never forgotten how fast Bucky was, and he was kissing him before Steve could even try to ask a question. Bucky must have known whether there was anyone else to see them.

“God," he said between kisses. “God, Steve.”

At his next weak croak, Bucky slid off him. Risk or no risk, Steve wanted him back with that warm mouth on his skin. But he brought him a glass of water and it was the best tasting thing in the future.

“I thought,” said Bucky, putting the glass aside, “after you got a Talent that we didn’t have to do this anymore.”

“That’s unfair, Bucky.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” There was a shadow behind Bucky’s eyes and underneath them too. ”God, I can’t.”

“Buck-”

“Not yet. I got… there’s things I got to tell you.  But not yet.” And he flowed forward, squeezing himself into the small space between Steve and the edge of the bed. One arm went over Steve’s chest and his head went onto his shoulder. “I will tell you. I just need… Just need to be human for a bit. Just give me a minute, Steve.”

In the future they’d only been this close when Steve held him during and after each panic attack. He’d almost forgotten the warm stillness of him.

Sixty seconds later, Bucky told him about the new Hydra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blues in the Night was written for the film of the same name in 1941. The 1942 version by Woody Herman charted on Valentine’s Day.


	5. That Old Black Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moved the rating from Teen up to M.

“Likelihood they got someone on the inside?”

“High, sir. Very high. They knew the hospital, they knew our route.”

Natasha pretended to be very invested in choosing a flavour of popcorn. Salty or sweet? Hydra or SHIELD?

“Assets?”

“Myself and Banner. Some agents that I can vouch for.” With every step, every email, every phone call mapped out. “Rogers and Barnes.”

“Barnes?”

“We know he’s not Hydra.” Not that he was SHIELD either, but he was firmly on the side of Rogers.

She chose the sweet popcorn, throwing it into her basket. A little harder than what was strictly necessary. Moles in SHIELD. Hydra in SHIELD lying undetected like a tumour.

“I don’t like not knowing what Barnes is up to.”

“Trust me, sir. You won’t need the cameras. Barnes isn’t a concern right now.”

Even though Fury looked like he was considering whether he needed more chips in his life, she could feel his attention on her. Take that attention off Rogers and Barnes. Give them space to reunite as lovers. Let them recover in privacy and heal enough so that they could be pointed at Hydra.

“Be careful, Romanov.”

“I always am.” She hefted her wire basket.

“They got spooked because we dug out those two from the ice,” said Fury to the shelves. “Two Talents from the forties. Who knows? Maybe Hydra's been in SHIELD that long too.”

***

There was snow falling outside. This made the hospital busier. More people would be in from slipping on ice, or influenza. Did people in the future get pneumonia? Were there still people in drafty apartments praying that they’d survive the winter? Heartbeats were everywhere and noise was everywhere and-

“Bucky.”

But there was also Steve, awake and alive.

“Yeah?”

“I know you don’t have to pace.” His legs moved over a little - his heartbeat raising a little from the pain in his abdomen - leaving a space on the clean white sheets. “Eat something.”

The hospital food could not be trusted. Hydra might not have another shapeshifter, but you didn’t have to be a Talent to tamper with meals. Instead Bruce had brought them bags of food from outside: sandwiches, chips, salads. He’d been warned about Steve’s appetite too.

The space was enough for Bucky to sit in. And it made Steve happy.

“How are you feeling?” he said, picking up the nearest sandwich and biting into it. Pastrami.

“As long as I don’t move, I’m fine.”

Bucky felt his fingers twitch. He was used to fighting down the urge to touch, but it had grown stronger since Steve had woken up. Just like seeing him in London for the first time, needing to make sure that he was here in flesh.

“So all I gotta do is stop you moving round? Why don’t I just take us to the moon while I’m at it?”

Steve laughed though it was cut off quickly by a wince. Pain again.

“If I don’t kill you with my sense of humour first.”

“That’s what you call it?”

This time Bucky did touch him. A hand on the arm couldn’t be constructed any other way than just pals, if they didn’t notice how his thumb smoothed up and down. God, he missed lying down with Steve. Sixty seconds had been all he could risk.

“You okay, Buck?”

Self-assessment was a favourite of Dr. Bidwell’s. Currently Bucky saw his situation like this: sixty-two stitches and bruised to within an inch of life. Anxiety high with Steve still in a hospital bed, and the return of Hydra who had not been destroyed seventy years ago. Unreasonable sources of anxiety included the ever-lingering fear that someone would come and strap him down onto another table. But with Hydra back maybe that wasn’t so unreasonable anymore. Suicidal thoughts currently at zero, and if Bruce Banner told Steve then his Talent wouldn’t save him. Conclusion:

“I’ve been better. Been worse too.”

A small cluster of heartbeats were heading their way. Bucky ‘ported his way across to take his place between Steve and the door. What he was good at.

There was no need to be a shield this time. It was Natasha with no Talent pouring off her to say she was someone else wearing her face. The two men she brought with her stayed out in the corridor.

“Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Turns out I slept through a lot.” And he just knew that Steve was looking at his bandages.

“We going somewhere?”

“My friends and I are.”

One of Natasha’s friends was blond, the other brunette. One a little too small to be Steve, one a little too big to be Bucky. But they wore padded jackets and hooded sweaters to disguise their shapes.

“He’s not been discharged yet.” Not that it had usually mattered to the stubborn little bastard, but for his part Bucky had tried to keep him in bed.

“Not officially. And until we know the situation then he won’t. But we’re moving you nonetheless. Get changed. I’ll be out here.”

Steve moved like an old man, like his younger self used to, clearly not done healing on the inside. But much as Bucky wanted him to stay with the doctors, this place was compromised. Too much traffic.

“Very nice,” said Natasha. She’d produced a wheelchair from somewhere. “You need help with this?”

“I got him.”

Sarah Rogers had taught him this. Bring the chair over. Get as close to him as possible, arms around his chest. Lock hands together, outside leg between knees for support, back straight, knees bent. Ignore the pain in your abused body. A touch of extra strength from a forced Talent helped too. And so a two hundred and fifty pound man went from bed to wheelchair.

No suspicions here, even when his body wanted to keep close. Therapists had mentioned the phrase touch-starved before, even if none of them had guessed the kind of touch that he was hungry for.

“You good?”

There was a familiar line of pain on Steve’s forehead and his heart rate was up again. But he nodded with that stubborn set to his jaw.

There had to be some way to get more than sixty seconds of human contact.

“Let’s go.”

Natasha had a gun in her hand, offering it to Bucky. Not too long ago, they’d taken all the knives away because they’d been afraid of what he could do.

“We don’t think they’re aware of this plan yet, but fortune favours the prepared.”

It went into his pocket. Armed was good. Even Hydra Talents died to a bullet if you caught them by surprise.

***

This safehouse was indeed not any of SHIELD’s usuals. The cameras - exterior only as requested by Natasha herself - weren’t even connected to SHIELD’s network, but instead to a small monitor in the main room. Bucky Barnes hadn’t noticed this detail yet. He was under Steve Rogers’ arm, helping him over to the sofa. One of his arms was looped around Rogers’ waist too.

If may have just been Natasha’s new-found knowledge, but it seemed like they were in contact more often than not. Even when Barnes wasn’t half-carrying his partner about, there were touches on shoulders and arms, legs accidentally brushing together.

“You got food in the fridge ready and we brought some of your things over.” Things that had been checked over for bugs: some clothes, a yellow legal pad half-filled with Rogers’ sketches, a copy of _Lord of the Rings_ , a family photo, and a vibranium shield. Now to watch their reactions. “We have exterior cameras that you can check here. No interior ones.”

Brief pause in Barnes rearranging the sofa to his liking, twitch of Rogers’ hand towards Barnes. They were in no condition for anything athletic but even a little would be good for them. Barnes’ body language still said _on guard_ \- _suspicious_ \- _protective_ so maybe a little extra push was needed.

“Would you mind if I borrow him for a moment, Steve?” Barnes did not like the military connotations of surnames only.

“I can’t get into too much trouble sitting here.”

“And I thought you couldn’t get into trouble sitting at home,” said Barnes, but he followed Natasha into the one bedroom.

“I got to say,” he said as she closed the door behind them, “I’m more into blondes.”

Of course he was.

“Flattering. But no. I wanted to tell you that I know.”

“Know what?” he said. He did it casually, but she noted how his fingers curled around the edge of the dresser.

“That you’re in love with Rogers.”

Denial was predictable and a little too perfect in how his eyebrows rose and in the curl of his lip. Practised.

“Now you’re really barking up the wrong tree.”

“And,” she continued like he hadn’t even spoken, “he’s in love with you. You were good, but you’ve not been up to hiding it lately.” The sardonic expression was still there but frozen. “After all you crawled bleeding onto his bed to-”

“It’s legal now.” He was very fast. From the dresser to looming over her with only the tiniest loss of memory. Natasha could shock him with a touch, but from the pained hiss of his voice there’d be no need. “I got told that. There’s no way you can use that against him.” Him. Not me or us.

“I wasn’t planning to. And if anyone else has noticed then they’ve not been sharing.”

“Then why-”

“Because, Bucky, things have handlers and masters.” She tapped him on the chest, but lightly for the sake of his stitches and bruises. “Things don’t have romantic partnerships. Steve Rogers isn’t your handler.”

After another tiny gap in memory, he was on the other side of the bedroom leaning on the wall. Both shoulders were shaking and his hands were over his mouth. Not a panic attack. More like lancing an abscess. Natasha knew the weight of secrets. When you could stop for just a little, the lack of weight was both freeing and terrifying.

“I love him,” said Barnes to the wall through the gaps in his fingers. “So goddamn much.”

“I saw how you looked at him in London.”

“That was the longest we’d been apart. And I saw him like that for the first time… Healthy.”

He scrubbed a hand across his eyes suddenly and turned to face her.

“He’s mine and I won’t let the Army or SHIELD or Hydra take him away again.”

“I believe that.” Especially with dozens of Talent kills to his name in a neat list in his file. “But first indulge my curiosity. How long?”

“2nd August, 1936.” He kept glancing at the door. “And I want to be alone with him now.”

“Of course.”

“We got two minutes of necking in seventy years, Natasha.”

“Well, take it easy on him, neither of you were cleared for anything too strenuous.”

Steve Rogers was already asleep where Bucky had left him, head resting at a painful-looking angle. Barnes hovered around him like he was setting the picture in his mind.

“Keep the door locked and lie low. I’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you, Natasha.”

“Rest up.”

As she left she saw him curl up against Rogers’ side.

***

The last time Steve had been woken by a kiss had been in French Alps in a tiny tent. It had been so cold that Bucky’s mouth had nearly burnt against his skin. Hadn’t stopped him from returning the favour. This time Bucky’s mouth didn’t burn. But there was a calloused hand on his cheek and he made the same little noise in the back of his throat as Steve kissed back.

“Hey, handsome,” he said as they parted. “How are you feeling?”

“Ask me again when I get up.”

For once Steve was in no hurry to do so, not when Bucky was warm next to him, with that mouth so close.

“Seems I always had to stop you getting out bed in the old days. Food’s cooking so we got time to get you a shower. You stink of hospital.”

One of the best things about the future - especially since ‘no Hydra’ was no longer true - were the showers. The hot water ran forever and they didn’t have to share with four other apartments.

“I think I can manage it.”

“Good.” Bucky didn’t make a move though instead tangling his fingers together with Steve’s. “Found out something about the future when you were asleep. You’ll like it.”

“Okay.”

He leant forward and kissed him again, this time along the jaw.

“All this,” said Bucky, warm breath ghosting across Steve’s skin, “is one hundred percent legal. I checked with Bruce and Dr. Bidwell and yeah some people will give you shit over it but-”

And Steve just powered forward to kiss him on the mouth and press their bodies together because it was more than he could have ever hoped. There had always been a part of him that had felt guilty. Bucky could have followed the normal path - steady girlfriend, wife, kids - even if there was no one else for Steve. He squeezed too hard and Bucky broke off the kiss with a yelp.

“Sorry!”

But Bucky was already laughing, even if he was clutching his side as he did.

“I guess we got to wait to take full advantage.”

They managed to get to the bathroom with Bucky under his arm taking most of the weight without complaint. It had one of those modern showers, no bathtub just a big square in the corner with glass doors. At least there were rails on the wall and space for Bucky too. And that thought was enough to make Steve’s Irish complexion heat up.

“You need a hand?” said Bucky from under his arm.

“This must have been a lot easier when I was smaller.”

“You’re telling me.”

Bucky undressed first with Steve in easy reach with the wall for support. With his clothes off, and with years of familiarity, it was easy to see how Bucky was being worn down. The bones of his hips were sharper, collarbone too. And then there was what was under the bandages. His skin was livid with purple and green bruises. Stitches stood out in black on his arms and chest.

“God, Buck.” He leant forward without thinking about it, stopping only when there was a warning jab of pain from somewhere inside him. “Should you be helping me around?”

“You got shot, asshole, don’t you dare. It looks worse than it feels.” He stripped Steve efficiently with only a brief pause to look at the entry wound. It was healing still, pink and tender compared to the flesh around it.

Under the warm spray, the ghost of pain went away for a while. He held onto the rails while Bucky scoured away the smell of hospital with soap. The gentle hands on him made heat pool in his gut down past the gunshot wound. Of course, Bucky noticed.

“Touch starved,” he said, running his fingertips along the inside of Steve’s thigh. The shiver that followed was completely involuntary. “That’s therapist-talk for hard up.”

When Steve emerged from the spray with all the suds washed away, Bucky pressed himself up against his side. Bruised and battered as he was, everything was still working.

“Touch starved,” Steve said, putting an arm around his waist.

“Can you blame me?” He lips found Steve’s collarbone. “Look what I’m sharing this shower with. _You_ are sharing it with Frankenstein’s monster. But I always knew you were perverse.”

“You always look good to me.” Steve let Bucky nudge him against the tiled wall. “Even when you look like Boris Karloff.”

“Perverse.” His hand slid carefully between their bodies. “What did I tell you?”

Any reply fled out of Steve’s head when Bucky wrapped his hand around the both of them and he groaned instead. Rapidly his entire world shrank down to him and Bucky, his arm thrown around Bucky’s shoulders, Bucky’s free hand on his hip. With all the cameras, he’d hadn’t worked up the courage to do this to himself. It had been agony to think Bucky had been in the next room and not here with his firm and confident strokes and his eyes dark with the wanting.

“God, Steve,” Bucky panted into his ear. His nails were digging into his hip. “I missed you.”

The anticipation building in his gut _hurt_ but it was so good too and when Bucky came - teeth biting down on his shoulder -  he did too with a cry half-pain and half-pleasure.

He was floating. What brought him down to earth was his grip on the rail and watching Bucky stick his hand under the water to wash away the evidence. Then he remembered that everything they just did was legal and he laughed.

“That bad, huh?” The water shut off and one arm curled around Steve’s back.

“No, no, it was great. It’s just- God, who’d have guessed?”

“Not me.” He kissed him then. “Let’s get you sat down. I won’t be responsible for Shield going back to hospital.”

To hospital where people could see them and already Steve was too used to the casual affection to give it up. So he obediently stood still - holding onto the rails - while Bucky towelled him off and helped him dress.

***

“Hi, Larry. How are we today?”

Larry, with his jaw wired shut, could not speak of course. But his eloquent glowering had died down to meekness.

“I hear you might have some names for us,” said Natasha. “We’ve got footage of you hanging around the Wine at Nine - cute name - and we got someone shifting through them as we speak. Sure would speed up the process if you could give us some information too.”

His one useful arm twitched and Natasha put the crayon in his fingers. Clumsily - because it made sound tactical sense to break his dominant hand - he began to write.

***

They were almost done demolishing dinner. Someone had made a large dish full of pasta, tuna, and cheese and had written out instructions in a neat, cursive for Bucky to find. He wondered idly if SHIELD had some grandmotherly type in the wings making things like this. Either way it was good. Steve was on portion four. He’d insisted Bucky take a second one and to his surprise he’d eaten that one too.

His legs were thrown over Steve’s lap and just occasionally Steve would touch him on the thigh or just look at him. Sap. Just a little fumble and food and he was as tame as anything.

On the table, next to the gun, Bucky’s phone started to ring. Sarah Rogers’ boy was too polite to talk with his mouth full, but he threw Bucky a puzzled look as he reached for it.

“It’s a phone, old man,” said Bucky and he answered it before Steve could retort. “Hello?”

“Sergeant Barnes,” said Nick Fury, “is Rogers awake?”

“Sure, he’s right here.”

“Put us on speaker.”

“Something wrong?”

“No.”

Bucky remembered his lessons and he switched to speaker, holding the phone between him and Steve. Steve’s face was the picture of concern and his hand went back onto Bucky’s thigh.

“Ready.”

“Captain Rogers? Sergeant Barnes?” said a new voice, “I’m Colonel Weaver of the U.S. Army.”

“Good evening, sir.”

Bucky echoed him, but his mind was racing. How many Talents would the Army have now? SHIELD had two. Logically the Army would have more, but the people at the top always wanted more.

He slid closer to Steve, leaning on his arm and shoulder. The Colonel was still talking, but Steve turned away to kiss him on the forehead. Good.

“-and getting you back, well we’d all just like to thank you both for your service to these United States. And Uncle Sam does not forget its soldiers I assure you.”

Sarah Rogers used to get money from the Army for her husband, the one that died before even meeting Steve. It had not gone far.

“Thank you, sir.”

“So there’s the matter of backpay. I won’t keep you long in your condition, Captain-” God bless, Steve Rogers, who frowned because they’d forgotten Bucky’s condition “- and the accountants don’t have a final figure yet, but we’re looking at roughly three million dollars apiece.”

Steve’s mouth dropped open and his hand tightened on Bucky’s leg.

“I- Say again, sir?”

“Three million. Over seventy years it adds up.”

“Holy shit,” said Bucky into Steve’s shoulder. Steve’s heart rate had shot up.

“Final figures will get passed on to you ASAP. Everything will get handled on our end.”

There were a few pleasantries exchanged before it was polite to hang up. It took Bucky two attempts with his shaking hands.

“Six million dollars,” he said to no one in particular.

“That’s still a lot of money in the future?”

“I think so.” Bucky couldn’t even picture that amount of money. What he could picture was empty cupboards and scraping up spare change to eat that night and bills for Steve’s medicine.

“We can get a very nice apartment.”

“We’re going to live like fucking kings, Steve.”

He kissed him then, because they were alone and in the future who gave a shit if you kissed another guy because you were happy. In just one day they’d done much more than two minutes of necking in an alley.

“So phones are like this in the future?”

At some point, while their lips were locked, Bucky’s phone had migrated to Steve’s lap. And they did need a distraction. Nothing too athletic. Not yet.

“Got all the bells and whistles.” An idea occurred to Bucky and he held out his hand for his phone. He remembered Bruce showing him this to distract him from the fact that Steve lay motionless in a hospital bed.

It was a good picture even though Bucky was an amateur at best. It was all on Steve though and his kiss-swollen lips and bright eyes.

“In colour too?” said Steve when he turned the phone around. “I always did want a picture of just you.”

“We’ll get you a good one to go in our castle.”

***

The gun went onto the bedside table on Bucky’s side. What Steve got was pillows, lots of pillows, piled up against his one side.

“That should keep you from moving,” said Bucky, looking on his work with an air of satisfaction. On Steve’s other side he placed himself, groaning as he lay down.

“You sure you don’t want a pillow?”

“I’m good.” Bucky’s head went onto his shoulder, his arm over his chest. And he did look comfortable, his fingers making lazy patterns on Steve’s skin. “Forgot just how much of a furnace you are.”

Steve brushed the top of his head with a kiss. “Tell me again how it is in the future?”

“The queer stuff?” he asked, still tracing shapes. “Or the fact we’re suddenly junior Rockafellas?”

“The first one.”

“So in the future, all this is completely fine in the eyes of the law. A hundred cops could barge in and see us like this and they wouldn’t do shit. Even if I were balls-deep in you right now.”

“Bucky.”

“Soon. So behave yourself, punk, and heal up.” He nudged him with his forehead. “You didn’t let me finish earlier. First hint of being legal and you leapt right on me.”

“There’s more?”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s body tensed up against Steve’s side and he could feel his heart going. “I was going to say that two guys can get married now. If they wanted.”

His hand stopped tracing patterns, instead lying flat over Steve’s heart.

“Would you? Would you want to?” Maybe his voice broke a bit, but though Bucky would tease he’d always do it with a smile.

“Steve.” He let go of a held breath, all his muscles uncoiling. “I would.”

“Marry me then.”

They hadn’t kissed like that in at least half-an-hour. Really it didn’t take much for Bucky to take his breath away.

“Eighty years to make an honest man out of me, Rogers? What will the neighbours think?”

“They always knew you were a hellraiser.”

“Can’t say that they’re wrong,” he said, all Barnes charm, “but I’m only raising it with you.”

They stayed awake a little longer wondering about the logistics of it, before falling asleep, warm and tangled together. If there was any justice in the world it would have merited a peaceful night’s sleep, but Steve woke in the small hours to Bucky kicking and clawing away at the covers. He’d rolled away across the bed and his back spasmed painfully with how hard he was trembling.

“Bucky.” He reached out - insides protesting - and laid a hand right between his shoulder blades.

Bucky woke with a scream, flicked his body over like a cat and landed in a crouch. Something in his battered body made him cry out again and sink back towards the mattress, eyes open and wild.

“Hey, hey. It’s me. Hey, Buck.”

He crawled back to Steve’s side, burrowing in. Underneath Steve’s hands he was shaking and, God, he was freezing.

“I got you here. You’re safe.” He slid his hands up and down his back, walking the line between sparing his bruises and anchoring him to earth. “You’re in bed with me. This is a safehouse that SHIELD put us in. No cameras, remember?” Bucky’s pulse was rabbiting under Steve’s fingers. “I asked you to marry me.”

That got a reaction. His head emerged from its safe harbour against Steve’s rib cage.

“Change your mind yet?” His teeth chattered.

“No! God, I’ve been in love with you since I was twelve years old and I saw you dancing with Phyllis Freeman. I got so jealous right up until she kept stepping on your feet.”

“You laughed.”

“So hard I nearly had an asthma attack. But I wanted to be the one in her place. Stepping on your feet.” Bucky was still looking up at him with those wide shiny eyes. There was moisture on his cheek when Steve cupped it with his hand. “I love you so much.”

Bucky made it back up with Steve’s encouragement, placing his cold cheek back on Steve’s shoulder. The covers went up and over hopefully still giving off a little warmth for him.

“I’m sorry.”

“For Phyllis Freeman?” That at least tugged Bucky’s lips up a little. “It’s not your fault, Buck. I won’t let them take you.”

“It wasn’t me.” He threw his arm around Steve’s chest pulling him into a firm hug. “I’ll kill every single one of them before you go on the table.”

“I know, Buck. You’ve always got my six.”

“Every single one.”

Steve pressed a kiss to his head, willing all his warmth into his new fiancé.

“I love you, Steve.”

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Old Black Magic was written in 1942 for the movie 'Star-Spangled Rhythm'. It's been recorded by literally everyone but the version by Glenn Miller charted in May, 1943.
> 
> I upped the rating just in case. If you think it's too high or too low just give me a bell in the comments. Thank you all for reading!


	6. You Always Hurt The One You Love

Virginia Landon, also known as Gini, had worked for SHIELD in five years. A data analyst with good yearly reports, she’d done the sensible thing in destroying her work phone and cashing out her accounts. Her mistake had been delaying her departure for the cat sitter.

When she opened the door to Natasha she made a second mistake: she froze with one hand on the doorknob and a cat carrier in the other.

“Hello, Landon.”

“Agent Romanov!” She didn’t resist as Natasha strode in. It was a New York studio, meaning about as much space as a shoe box. A clothes rack under the loft bed was empty except for hangers. A coat hung from a hook in the wall and a suitcase was waiting underneath that.

“I hear Chicago’s cold this time of year,” she said, taking the coat down. “You better not forget this.” There was a tell-tale shape in an inner pocket. Interesting. Landon’s accounts had amounted to about two thousand dollars and change. This was-

“Twenty thousand dollars is plenty of spending money.”

“I’m-” She stood in front of the door, cat carrier in both hands. “I’m going to see my Mom.”

“Oh? I thought she lived in Rhode Island.”

“I-” The tears were beginning to stream down her face.

“What happened to your work phone? Because what we think, Landon, is that it looks like a guilty conscience at work.” She drew out a chair and sat down, putting both her hands together. “Word in the office says you’ve been _very_ interested in our new Talents.”

“I didn’t know!” In the carrier the cat started to mewl. “I didn’t know they were going to hurt them!”

“What did you think they’d do with the intel, you stupid girl? Get their autographs? A selfie? You knew. You just didn’t want to know.”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” Natasha shook her head. “I don’t have to. I’d just let Winter know.”

“What-”

“You gave intel away that put Shield in hospital. The one person he has left in the world. I wonder what he’d do. A Mad Talent like that, it could be anything.”

“Please.”

“Only way to stop this is to tell us what you know. You’ve got no friends left, Landon, especially the ones who you sold our intel too. I can’t think of one agent who’d stick their neck out for something like you.”

***

It was odd, how soon he’d forgotten. When they got out of the car and were hit by a blast of cold air, he’d almost put an arm around Bucky. Bucky had looked up at him, his smile promising _later_ , and still Steve nearly pushed a stray strand of hair back into place for him.

It was legal now - and there were no rings, no getting down on one knee, all the same they were engaged - but just a few months ago it hadn’t been. There was still the little twist of fear in the pit of his stomach at getting blue-ticketed, of separation and prison. Bucky was looking at him again, even as he unwound his scarf from his neck. Any chance of lying to him had gone out the window when he’d became a human stethoscope. Steve gave him a reassuring smile and that would have to do until they were back in their assigned apartment.

“Excited to be back?”

Natasha was leading them right through the main lobby, past staff and cameras. Natasha had figured out what they were from old footage and a desperate, post panic-attack Bucky. Bucky had told him himself after their first night and apologised too. Steve hadn’t accepted it: there was no blame.

“Maybe excited is the wrong word.”

The hospital was compromised, but Steve didn’t feel safe here in SHIELD HQ either. Just because he’d could lift a jeep over his head, didn’t mean he couldn’t think in terms of espionage. Logically if Hydra had found out their route to Chelsea Market and then found them again in the hospital they had someone feeding them information from the inside.

“Just a trip to see our old friend the MRI.”

When they got there Bucky parked himself in a chair outside. Banner had tried to persuade both of them to have a scan when they first came here. Bucky had refused point-blank to get in one, and Steve had too. The worst nightmares, the ones that made Bucky wake up screaming, always involved the table.

“It’s okay, Steve,” he said, looking anywhere but the door. “Even you can’t get into trouble lying down in a tube.” He shrugged then, almost the perfect casual Barnes shrug.

“I’m more worried about you getting into trouble out here. I’m the good influence.”

“Says you.” He patted Steve on the arm, “Go on. Get it over with. I’m fine.”

***

As soon as Steve was safe (as safe as you could be in one of those machines) Bucky turned to Natasha.

“You brought us here to flush out your mole, didn’t you?”

“Who says we have a mole?” she replied. But she looked utterly unsurprised.

“You think we just charged up to Hydra on a battlefield in the old days?”

In the next room, Steve’s heart was beating steadily and calmly. Calmly in this place which from the beginning had been harbouring Hydra. Had the people who bought their food and clothes been Hydra? The people on the cameras watching them, watching his _panic attacks_ , were they Hydra too?

“How did you break out the first time?” said Natasha, taking a seat next to him.

“You won’t remember.”

“Try me.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. It was like a sore that people kept poking at in their own heads.

“I got the same super senses Steve got, but my hearing’s better. I can pinpoint noises from far away and listen in on stuff like your agents going to the can or saying the passcode under their breath.”

He could also pinpoint the exact moment that she realised. Her face went from glazed-over to annoyed.

“Damn it.”

“No one chooses their Talent.”

“If I ask you if you can do… whatever it was again, yes or no, will I remember?”

“You will. And I can.”

“And could you find us someone with a guilty conscience?”

“ _Yes_.”

***

Bruce knocked before he entered the MRI room, even though he could see Steve Rogers sat there. It was only polite.

“Hi. I heard you were back.” Which seemed dangerous given the Hydra situation, but when he brought it up with Natasha she’d just smiled.

“Just getting looked over,” Steve said with a look at the big, white tube.

“It’s pretty loud in the MRI, isn’t it?” It was strange to see Steve without Bucky within arms reach, but maybe the other man was getting treatment elsewhere. “How are you? I saw you in the hospital. I mean, I took over for Bucky sometimes. While you were asleep.”

“He mentioned that.” And he beamed up at Bruce. “Thank you, Dr. Banner. For looking after him.”

“It’s Bruce, please.”

“Bruce. But thank you. He must have been…” The smile faded. “It must have been hardest on him.”

“But you’re okay now? Cleared? And he’s okay?”

“Getting there. I hope. He’s not had another panic attack yet.” Then he leant forward in his chair, hands working at each other nervously. “How was he back then? He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Bucky had described this man as all he had left in the world and the reverse must be true too. How long would Bruce have taken to work out they were in love? It seemed obvious when Natasha pointed it out, the too-casual touches and the looks.

“Well, he didn’t like to leave you alone for very long. And he found it hard to sleep.” Bruce adjusted his glasses. “Um, I think he should tell you the rest. But he’s not, you know, he’s not in any danger.”

“Danger?”

Oh no.

“Doctor- Bruce? What do you mean danger?”

A voice in the back of Bruce’s head suddenly came alive hissing “Tell him you mean Hydra, idiot!” but it was too late. Steve Rogers’ face was agony.

“Did he hurt himself? I know he got hurt fighting the Hydra Talent, but did he do anything to himself?”

Bruce could have stayed mute. He wasn’t afraid of the Talent Shield who could punch his way through heavy armour. But he hated the way that Steve looked like Bucky had done waiting outside surgery, like the whole world had fallen out from underneath his feet.

“When you were... Now this was when you were in theatre, when you were… But when you were first brought in, I asked… I asked if he would, if you didn’t…”

“ _Banner_.”

“He implied that if you didn’t make it then he’d kill himself. I’m sorry!” he added quickly. The other man’s face had drained of all colour. “He wouldn’t have. Not when you’re-”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“We thought-” But apparently he didn’t want an answer and Bruce scurried out of the way as Steve went for the door. There was a coat and scarf folded on the chairs outside but no Bucky Barnes.

“Bucky?” said Steve into the empty corridor. He hand clutched the door frame tight enough to crack it.

“I’ll call Nat,” said Bruce, fishing for his phone.

***

Agent Herbert, formerly on Talent detail and former owner of an impressive shiner courtesy of Bucky Barnes, stalked the alleyway. He made dark lines in the snow and had his phone clamped tightly to the side of his head.

“What do you mean you didn’t know they left the hospital?”

He, or someone with parahuman hearing, could listen to the voice on the other end.

“Intel was incorrect.”

“Too right it was. And the hospital attack? I thought you were Talent experts?”

“We were promised that Rogers would have only human guards,” said the voice, a flat male voice with an American accent. “Were we not promised that Barnes would be gone?”

“I can’t be blamed if no one wanted to move him. He’s fucking nuts is what he is. No one wanted to deal with it.”

“Your incompetence cost us Chrysalis. Our best infiltrator.”

“Talk to me about incompetence. Your pet couldn’t deal with a man in his bed.”

“We gave specific instructions. Separate. Divide and conquer. Together they are infinitely more difficult to defeat. You were paid handsomely to insure this.”

“Paid handsomely to keep quiet you mean. I got lists and I got copies of lists so it don’t matter if you send the heavies round.”

“Get it done. Or ‘heavies’ will be the least of your concerns. There is more than one Winter Soldier.”

Agent Herbert swore, loudly and rapidly, almost throwing his phone to the ground. But he stopped himself just in time, stowing it safely in his pocket. And that was when Bucky ‘ported down from the fire escape.

“Jesus!” He staggered back a few steps. “Who the fuck let you slip your leash, freak?” His heart kicked up a gear.

“I heard you talking to your friends.” Bucky’s breath plumed in the air. His heart rate was level as a sniper’s should be. “Your Hydra friends.”

“Prove it. It’s my word against yours, and you’re the one who belongs in the padded-”

Bucky was already further from Steve than he was comfortable with - though as always his heartbeat was fixed on his internal compass - so he ended it quickly. The gun he stripped away, and he drove his other fist up into Herbert’s gut. Right where Steve got shot.

***

“I don’t know where Barnes is,” said Natasha.

“That’s not what we need right now, Nat. I got... Steve needs to know where he is.”

“I thought he was still in the MRI!”

Steve’s hands were curled into fists and every muscle was tense and trembling.

“He isn’t.”

“Mm, hang on, I have another call.”

“Nat!”

“All these cameras and you don’t know where he is.”

“I’m sorry, Steve, I’m so-”

“Lobby,” said Natasha into his ear.

“Lobby?” he echoed, but Steve was already away.

***

Steve always had a good head for directions and maps and he found his way to the high galley above the lobby in no time. Bucky immediately drew his eye, the skinny figure in sweater and jeans with one booted foot on the chest of an agent. Agents in suits had him surrounded in a semicircle with guns drawn. But even with his hands up, Bucky looked so confident and cocky and so beautiful.

“Barnes. Take your foot off Agent Herbert and kneel on the ground with your hands behind your head.” The lead agent was a woman with blond hair and an oddly-familiar air of stubborness. “Slowly now.”

Steve grabbed the glass partition in both hands, about to launch himself off into the lobby, but there was something in Bucky’s hand. He recognised it as his phone when a little voice started to come from the speaker.

“ _Talk to me about incompetence. Your pet couldn’t deal with a man in his bed ... Paid handsomely to keep quiet you mean. I got lists and I got copies of lists so it don’t matter if you send the heavies round._ ”

“These modern phones,” Bucky said, lips curling up, “are quite something, aren’t they?”

“ _Agents, stand down_!” That was Natasha crossing the floor, Talent clinging to her skin. While everyone moved back - in creepy simultaneous movements - she moved in, taking the phone from Bucky. “Guilty conscience?” she asked.

“The guiltiest,” said Bucky all bright eyes like a man who’d never ever thought of killing himself. He passed the phone over, “I want that back.”

“You’ll get it back. I just need the audio.”

Then Bucky finally took his boot off Agent Herbert and teleported straight to Steve.

“Hi.” He was almost giddy, but that faded as he noticed Steve’s heartbeat or his face. “What’s the matter?”

How had he been planning to do it? Leaping from somewhere high and not saving himself with his Talent, or shooting himself through the temple, or-

“Nothing.” He didn’t trust himself to let go of the glass wall or look Bucky in his pretty blue eyes. Not when all he could see was Bucky fixing to finish the job the war and Zola had started and-

Underneath his hands, the glass pane cracked.

“Shit!” Bucky’s own hands went to his and Steve tugged them away. There was a line of pain on his fingers. “Steve-”

“Let’s go. Let’s just go back.”

But Bucky’s hand clamped onto his wrist like iron and dragged him along into some empty office.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with _me_?” But, no, he reeled his voice in, forced his shoulders to relax, forced his hands - already they’d stopped bleeding - back to his sides. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Bullshit.” Bucky had that muleish look on him, like nothing could move him except, except… “I’ve known you too long, Steve. You’re angry.”

“I’m not angry.”

“Bullshit,” he repeated. “Why’re you bottling it all up?”

“I’m not going to argue with you.”

Steve turned to go but Bucky beat him to the door by teleportation.

“You think I can’t take it anymore? Is that it?” He was angry enough to be shaking and not in terror for once. “Ain’t I a Howling Commando anymore?”

“There’s no Commandos without Bucky Barnes.”

“Then why are you treating me with kid gloves. I’m not made of _fucking_ glass!”

“Fine then! Why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to kill yourself?” And, because Steve had known Bucky for too long as well, he could see the way all the anger went out of him and was replaced by stillness.

“Didn’t matter anymore.”

“Didn’t- What the hell was I supposed to do? I found out from _Banner_!”

“He shouldn’t have opened his mouth.”

“ _You_ shouldn’t have given up. If you had been the one… Do you think I would have if you’d-”

“No. You’d have lived while doing stupid shit like facing a whole Hydra army by yourself.”

“Yeah, it was stupid, but what do you call tracking down enemy agents by yourself?”

“Pretty fucking stupid.”

Bucky held out his hands and Steve put his into them. There was blood on his fingers but only a pink line where the wound had been.

“It wasn’t a thing for long,” he sub-vocalised. “And…” His body shivered. “Your heart stopped for thirty seconds. I don’t want kid gloves, I don’t want to be treated different. But I’m a fucking headcase, Steve, you can’t go and leave me by myself in the future.”

“I won’t. So long as you let me have your six.” Cameras or no cameras, he tugged one hand out of Bucky’s to put an arm around him. “You’re not a headcase.”

“Thanks.” His fingertips lightly stroked Steve’s palm in a way that had nothing to do with checking for glass. “And I really need you not to do any more stupid shit this time.”

“I’ll try.”

Natasha was waiting for them outside, a little way down the corridor. With her was a black lady with close-cropped grey hair and vividly colourful jewellery. Immediately Bucky went shy, dropping his gaze to the floor.

“Hi, Dr. Bidwell.”

“Hello, Bucky.”

***

Iris Bidwell had seen a lot over the length of her career. Most of it was not for repeating, which she expected when she chose to specialise in torture survivors. James Buchanan Barnes ( _“it’s Bucky, please”_ ) was only the second Talent she’d treated. No one specialised in them anymore. By the time she’d gone to college it had been obvious that their numbers were going to keep falling. And no one could have guessed that two more would be rediscovered in the twenty-first century.

As New York real estate went, where they kept Bucky and Steven Rogers wasn’t bad. It had a high ceiling and an empty space in front of the windows where a nice, big dining table could go. She’d lived in worse digs as a young woman.

“Do you want some coffee, Doctor?”

“Thank you, Bucky. Milk, but no sugar, please.” There was one of those gaps in memory and then Bucky was in the kitchen, putting the kettle under the tap. He used his Talents more when he was nervous, though when they were talking he tried his best not to. “It’s nice to meet you both in the flesh.”

“Same here, ma’am.” That was Steven Rogers. Bucky didn’t say anything, but she did spot a tiny pleased smile on his face.

Steve Rogers was tall, blond, and beautiful. There was something about him, a kind of gentle fierceness, that came through on film, but was nothing like meeting him in person. She could understand why he’d endured as an American icon. And working with Bucky, she could see why his brother-in-arms had been pushed into the background.

“I heard you’ve both been cleared.”

“Just this morning.” Steve was gathering things up, a sketchpad and a handful of pencils. “Is it okay if I’m in the next room?”

Bucky nodded,

“You want the music?”

“If you’re not using it.”

Iris nearly had a heart attack when Bucky threw the phone over his shoulder without looking, but the other man snatched it out of the air easily.

“See you later. Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

He vanished into the one bedroom.

“So how are you, Bucky?”

“Fine,” he said, stirring milk into both mugs. “You know. Better. Less nightmares.”

“Panic attacks?”

“Not much to panic over when it’s just been me and Steve.”

She accepted the mug of coffee from him. He sat on the sofa opposite, drawing his legs up into a classic defensive pose.

“Is there anything you’d like to talk about today?”

He nodded. She allowed him time to get all his thoughts into line, watching him stare into his mug. Meeting in person was a lot easier. Talking to someone through the little rectangle of a tablet screen cut out a lot of body language. Bucky was mostly still while he was thinking except for his hands. His free hand fidgeted with a cushion, he tapped his fingers on his mug.

“I’m getting married.”

Iris stared at him. He looked serious, looking right at her over his mug.

“You’re getting married?”

“Yeah.”

“To who?”

Bucky had been in the future for a matter of months. It wasn’t unheard of for the impulsive and the manic to do something like this, but that didn’t fit Bucky’s profile. He was more prone to withdrawing.

Bucky nodded to the bedroom door.

“To Steve, of course.”

Oh.

Bucky’s free hand rubbed across his mouth, his gaze suddenly veering off into the corner of the room.

“You’re the first person I told. Natasha guessed and she told Bruce, but you’re the first one I told. Might be the first one to hear that we’re fixing to get hitched. So there’s that. We’re getting married.”

“Congratulations,” said Iris automatically. “If I can be honest, that wasn’t what I was expecting to be talking about today, Bucky.”

“We thought that I should tell you first. Wasn’t too long that we couldn’t tell anyone.” Wasn’t too long by Bucky’s timeline, but he found it easier to work that way.

“Did you find it hard telling me?”

“Yeah… Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of him and I love him. Wouldn’t have done nearly ten years otherwise.”

“But old habits die hard.” Iris put aside her pad. “I can imagine that being a homosexual man-”

Bucky shook his head.

“I like the dames. It’s just Steve’s my exception.” He shrugged. “I don’t know whether Steve is either. The way he tells it, he’s been holding a candle for me since he was in the cradle. If there were other guys, he’s not said.”

“Let’s say being in a relationship with a man then. It was hard, wasn’t it? Don’t worry if you still feel like you have to hide it.”

He withdrew into himself then, his shoulders hunching up around his ears.

“Did something upset you?”

“It wasn’t hard. Me and Steve.” His left hand trembled and he withdrew it out of sight between his legs and his body.

“Tell me what was then.”

“Having no money. Going to war. Being… sick.”

“Being sick doesn’t mean-”

“It made me angry. Seeing Steve get hit every winter. This time weren’t… When he got pneumonia the first time, I beat on Joe Hewitt hard enough to cut up all my knuckles because he’d joked about it. Nearly got my ass fired every winter taking time off to look after him. And now?” He threw up his hand gesturing to himself. “Now it’s me.”

“Go further,” she cajoled. “What do you mean?”

“He has the biggest fucking heart. And I can’t stop him taking on all that _weight_.” The veterans especially didn’t like having their tears acknowledged, so Iris merely watched as they started to make their way down Bucky’s cheeks. “I lie to him now. I didn’t tell him about wanting to kill myself. I didn’t- I lied about no panic attacks. In the shower, I looked down at the bruises and it was like being back there. Being hosed off ‘cause I smelled bad. He was taking a nap on the couch and I didn’t want to wake him.” And then he did the one thing that all Iris’ patients did without fail. “Dr. Bidwell, am I getting better?”

“With mental illness progress is often not linear. Sometimes you’ll feel just as you used to and sometimes you have a bad day. And often treatment takes a long time. But, Bucky,” she gave him a smile, “I am pleased with your progress.”

She waited while Bucky mopped his face with a fistful of tissues and shivered.

“Carer fatigue is a valid concern. Steve needs support as well, doesn’t he? He gets quite a bit of positive attention, but little of it useful. Am I right?”

Bucky nodded.

“I have a colleague in D.C. A nice young man, works for the VA. Do you think Steve would like to talk to him?”

“He’s not crazy,” said Bucky, his eyes red-rimmed.

“Many people who undertake therapy just need a neutral third-party to listen and help them work things through.”

Bucky curled up on himself. He was nearing his limit for the day, Iris could tell.

“This friend of yours a soldier?”

“He was.”

“If you can get his stubborn ass to take the help then he’ll listen.”

***

Steve was engrossed in getting the line of Natasha’s jaw just right when someone knocked the door. He could make an educated guess as to who it was. Bucky wouldn’t have bothered knocking, and might not even have bothered with the door.

“Come in.”

“Hello.” Dr. Bidwell poked her head in, “We’re all done for the day.”

“How is he?”

“Just washing up.” She entered the room taking a look around. “Were you sketching? Oh, Natasha,” she said when Steve showed her. “It’s a really good likeness.”

“Thank you. I’ve had a lot of time to get back into art these days.” Mostly with Bucky as model, just like back in his lovesick teenage days. “Doctor… how is he really? Is he…”

“I’m pleased with his progress.” She smiled. “You know he asked me that today as well.”

“Great minds…”

“He also tells me you’re getting married.”

“Just as soon as we get ourselves settled. I want to do it before we hit ten years. Eighty years. Do they do wedding rings for people like us?”

“They do.” She rummaged in her bag, bringing out a card. “This is for you. For when you need someone to talk to.”

The name said Sam Wilson with a telephone number beneath it.

“Is Sam Wilson like you?”

“Less specialised, less… full-on. He’s a good man.”

“I bet Bucky said something about me being stubborn.”

“Yes.”

“Takes one to know one.” He ran his thumb over the card. “What do I say?”

  
“Anything you like.” She turned at the knock on the front door, “I believe that’s my ride.”

Bucky was at the door already, letting Natasha in. Then he flicked right back to Steve’s side, eyes on the card in his hand. Steve gave him a nod.

“It was lovely to meet in person, Bucky,” said Dr. Bidwell again and she held out her hand. Bucky shook it gently.

“Thanks, Dr. Bidwell.”

“See you soon.”

Natasha winked as she passed another bag of food over and then they were alone. Bucky sighed like a weight was coming off. He looked like he did after a good session, red-eyed and tired but lighter.

“How was it?”

“Good.”

There was more than food in Natasha’s bag. There was also a small paper bag with ‘ _Have fun, boys :)_ ’ written on it in black pen. Bucky opened it and snorted.

“Really?” He fished out a box, shaking his head. “What’s she think I’m going to catch off you?” He put the condoms back, took out a bottle, read it, and slid it in his pocket. When Steve finished putting food away, Bucky was already next to him.

“Hey.” He tipped his head to one side, “You come here often, good-looking?”

“That line was old when we were young, Buck.” He lifted his arm and the other man went in under it.

“All depends on the delivery.” He slid both his arms around Steve’s waist. “And who’s doing the delivering.” He was warm and scrubbed raw from therapy, and his hands were roaming up the line of Steve’s spine.

“Bucky-”

“I want to take care of you. You don’t have to carry all the weight yourself.”

His eyes were dark.

“I could be persuaded.”

Suddenly Bucky was cackling against his shoulder.

“Persuaded he says!” And there was that look, his mouth curled up into his pleased, cocky smile. “Face it. When it comes to me, you’re easy.”

“Why don’t you prove it?” Because Steve knew exactly what buttons to push on Bucky too.

Bucky fisted his hands into Steve’s shirt and pulled him into a kiss. There was nothing shy about it: all fierce and hot. Of their own accord, Steve’s hands went to his hips pressing them even closer together. Already his heart was racing. Maybe he was easy for him, but Bucky was easy to love.

“Come to bed,” said Bucky into his ear. He kissed that sensitive place on Steve’s neck, making a shiver run up his spine. “Come on, handsome, let me take care of you.”

When he tangled their fingers together, Steve followed.

***

“Romanov, the fuck is this? Get me out of this fucking chair.”

“Hello, Daniel.”

“Don’t you give me the spy shit-”

“Then I’ll be straight with you, Agent Herbert. We found your little dossier.” No retort that time. “I mean under a loose floorboard? Really?” She slid a blank piece of paper across to him. A ballpoint pen went neatly above it. “You conspired with Hydra to kill two men. Where is their base of operations?”

***

“I thought you were taking care of me?” said Steve. His shirt was on the floor already and he was undoing his belt. Bucky leant against the bedroom door watching him. Back in their old apartment, at this time of year, it would have been too cold for shows like this. They’d strip under the covers to keep warm and cling close to share body heat. But in the heat of Brooklyn summers then Bucky liked to watch him undress. Even before his transformation - with the scoliosis and bad lungs and ribs always showing - Bucky would look at him like he imprinting the memory onto his brain.

“All in good time. We got time, don’t we?” His gaze ran up and down Steve’s naked body as trousers and boxers were kicked away. “Time for anything you want.”

“I want you.”

“Figured.” Bucky shoved him lightly backwards onto the bed. Steve could have dug his heels in, but why would he want to? When he offered his hand, Bucky took it. He kissed his way across Steve’s palm, and Steve treasured the way his eyes fluttered closed.

“I want you inside me.” There was a groan against his palm. “I’m in your hands.”

“Fuck, Steve.”

“That’s what I want. You getting undressed too?”

Bucky gave him his best wicked grin, but didn’t start stripping. Instead his hands went to Steve’s thighs, pushing them apart. His lips touched Steve’s collarbone and, as he sank to the floor, he kissed the skin above his heart, his healed-over stomach, his hip. Then he opened his mouth and took Steve in.

To look at him right now would end it too soon so Steve tipped his head back, fists gripping the covers. But God he could feel it. That sweetly clever tongue - with parahuman agility - and those lips.

He tugged on his hair and Bucky came back up. Because he was Bucky he did it slowly, finishing with a kiss to the head that nearly undid him there and then.

“Yeah?” He rubbed his cheek against the soft skin of Steve’s inner thigh.

“I need… I want you to…”

“You telling me America’s first Talent can’t give me more than one a night anymore? All that talk about being tough only for getting beat up?” That grin had been the ruin of many a Brooklyn girl and one Brooklyn boy. Talents weren’t gods, only god-like.

“I can take it.” But for how much longer he couldn’t guess. Not when Bucky kissing his inner thigh made him shudder.

This time he just let himself fall backwards onto the covers. Bucky knew this body better than he did and he knew all the sensitive spots and the way his hips jerked. He cried out, feeling Bucky swallow everything down. The aftermath felt like flying, like his body was weightless. Even lighter than 1942 where he’d been lucky to hit a hundred pounds when times were good.

Bucky slid into view, still dressed. One of his hands splayed out on Steve’s chest.

“Knew there was a reason you’re marrying me.”

No. No, there was the way he smiled too; and the steadfast loyalty; and the way he craved Steve’s body heat at night; and the thick eyelashes that made girls jealous; and how he never shut up; and a hundred more reasons. He put his hand over Bucky’s, fitting his fingers in between the other man’s and there was another reason: they didn’t need words to communicate.

“You’re so damn cute.”

Steve got himself together enough to drag at Bucky’s collar and bring him close enough to kiss.

“Take your damn clothes off.”

“Yes, sir!”

***

“Lowry.”

“Michael Lowry.”

“Bradley too. We gave him money. Nobles brought me in. Entire STRIKE teams.”

“ _Tell me which ones_.”

“Alpha, Gamma, Epsilon. Fuck you, Talent. You bitch.”

“ _Where are Hydra hiding, Herbert_?”

“Jersey.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'You Always Hurt The One You Love' charted in June 1944 with the version by the Mills Brothers.
> 
> Fair warning that the next chapter is going to be looooong. If it starts to get unwieldy I may break it into two parts, but if I take a little longer to update it's only because there's a lot of words to go.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone!


	7. I've Heard That Song Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter everyone!

Yesterday had been a good day. They’d moved the sofa and coffee table over to the one wall, rolled up the rug, and made a place for sparring: Steve and his shield vs Bucky and his teleportation, best to three touches. Since the best defence against a teleporter like Bucky was to weigh him down, it ended up with Bucky trapped between Steve’s body and his shield, his right wrist in Steve’s grip.

“So that’s how it is,” he’d said, and naturally they’d ended up in bed with Bucky writhing underneath him in utter bliss. It had been a good day.

The night had been good too. They’d fallen asleep with Bucky’s back against Steve’s chest and Steve’s heavy arm keeping him close. Neither of them woke with nightmares. It had been a good night right up until Bucky’s phone started to beep on the bedside table.

Bucky jerked awake. His hand had been tangled with one of Steve’s and his grip tightened involuntarily. Then he was wriggling free, reaching for the shrill device.

“Mm, hello?” he said into it, sliding back into the warm space he’d just vacated. He rolled over so that his head was tucked under Steve’s chin and Steve put his arm back round him to keep him where it was safe. “What?”

He squinted at the screen, tapped something then held it between their bodies.

“Sorry for the early wake-up call, boys.” That was Natasha. The little clock on the bedside table was pointing at five past four. “We found them.”

Bucky stiffened in Steve’s arms.

“Where?” asked Steve.

“Jersey. You can come if you like.” Bucky’s eyes, illuminated by the screen, flicked up to meet Steve’s. “Backup only. We need your experience with Hydra more than anything.”

“That was a long time ago,” said Steve, thinking that that was a lie. It had been only months for the two of them.

“You’ll be surprised at how little things can change, Steve.”

“We’ll be there.” Bucky’s tension had changed to readiness, his expression gone to grim.

“Then I’ll be by in thirty minutes.”

The call ended and the screen turned itself off, plunging the room back into darkness. Steve could feel Bucky moving against him wanting to get up. But his body was still sleep-warm and good against his. He hadn’t had a nightmare tonight.

“Steve.”

“I know.” He didn’t need light to find Bucky’s mouth and kiss him. “Stay with me, okay?”

“Someone’s got to watch your back.”

***

Bucky had been there when Talents had been new. Most had gone out to fight in uniform. The partisans wore regular clothes, blending in until they could strike at the enemy. And one had gone around in red, white, and blue with a matching shield, to be a symbol and incidentally a massive target. These modern Talents wore all black, vital areas armoured in something called Kevlar. But Bucky’s favourite thing was the white star on the throat and arms. Steve’s symbol was still the shorthand for American Talents. It was almost touching, and Bucky could feel good about it until Hydra appeared and all the good, soft memories were put away.

He sat in between Steve and the door of the van, listening to his heartbeat and those of the STRIKE team crammed in here with them. He wasn’t worried. Steve would stay with him - as long as conditions allowed, because they’d seen enough battlefields to know how plans went - and he’d promised. Steve had drawn his dog-tags over his head and put them around Bucky’s neck. It had almost been like proposing, the kind that guys did to girls back in their day.

He wondered if anyone had had a proposal like they did. Lying in bed all bruised and battered, gently dancing around it because neither of them could quite believe that they were allowed to. That was a good memory. The best. And that too would go away until Hydra was gone from here. They had _hurt_ Steve and they would regret doing that. Back in the old days, Hydra agents would rather swallow cyanide than face the two of them.

Around Steve’s neck hung another set of dog-tags - BARNES, JAMES BUCHANAN.

***

Camp Leigh was laid out in front of them and it hadn’t changed much, even under a cover of snow. All Steve had to do was close his eyes and he was back under the gaze of all the scientists and the brass. Those snowy lumps out in the open might be the weights, big spheres with the numbers painted on the side like something out of a cartoon.

From up here, up on the ridge, this place looked abandoned. All except the path shovelled through the snow from the gate right up to the sinister low shape of the bunker.

“There we are,” said Fury. He seemed unaffected by the cold, unlike Bucky who was glowering at the snow-laden branches and the icicles. “We found three vehicles parked up, but we’re not so naive that we think they just got enough here to fill them.”

“No,” said Bucky. “There’s forty-seven of them. All underground.”

He hunched up closer to Steve, ignoring the look Fury gave him.

“I’m assuming, Sergeant, that this is covered by your amnesia field,” said Fury. “Captain, you’ll vouch for his accuracy?”

“Every time.”

“Forty-seven then. Romanov,” he said, moving back down towards the convoy, “I want Banner up front.”

But Bucky was still looking over the camp.

“Buck?”

“I thought there was…” He shook his head. “No.”

“Forty-seven?”

“Yes.”

But Bucky gave the white ground another uncertain look until he turned to follow Steve down.

By the vans Banner was standing in the snow in a heavy coat and a lighter version of the outfit Bucky and Steve were wearing. He took off his glasses, tucked them into his coat pocket and handed it all over to Natasha.

“Well,” he said with a worried grin, “see you later.”

Steve watched him trot through the gate and down the shovelled out path. He looked small.

“Should we go too?” he asked. Natasha was standing next to him also watching Bruce.

“No. He’ll be fine.”

Bucky appeared on top of the van.

“Hydra’s moving.” Someone had given him a rifle considerably more sophisticated than the one he’d schlepped around Europe. “I should-”

“Bruce can handle himself.”

The bunker door opened a crack and Bucky hunkered down on the roof. He raised his rifle and looked through the scope, his hands very steady.

When it happened it happened fast. A tiny figure lifted a gun and then came Bruce’s Talent in one great flash like a bomb going off.

“Holy shit!” said Bucky, lowering the gun. The huge green shape was tossing men around like a kid with a toy. Someone from inside the bunker had a grenade which only seemed to enrage Bruce further. They could hear him tear the doors open from here.

“Talents, move up,” said Fury’s voice in his ear and so they went. Steve went first with his shield ready, Natasha behind him despite her eye roll. Bucky walked off to one side, not even breaking the crust on the snow. He wondered if they still made the patches for Talents, the ones that said ‘ _We Go First_ ’.

Around the entrance the bodies were half-buried, visible because the blood turned the snow pink. Beyond the mangled doors was a long, wide spiral heading down. It had been well defended. Steve saw how the spike barriers and the barricades would funnel attackers towards gun emplacements. This had not stopped Bruce.

“Twenty four left,” said Bucky out loud, then he frowned. “But-”

Whatever he was going to say was drowned out by the roar from deeper into the earth.

“Stay here,” said Natasha. “I’ll go calm him down.”

“Are you-”

“I’ll be fine.”

She vanished around the bend with a flick of red hair. Then it was just the two of them, but that was normal. It had been just the two of them for a long, long time.

“You think you could beat him?” said Bucky, shouldering his rifle.

“No. But we don’t have to.”

“Doesn’t sound too stupid. Maybe my good sense is finally sinking in.” At odds with his words, Bucky’s hand went to Steve’s shoulder.

“You say it enough times, it’s got to sink in. Even for me.” Which earned him a grin. Steve could draw that from memory, even the new sharpness to his cheekbones.

“Boys,” said Natasha in their ears. “Come down.”

They went down, Bucky with gun ready and Steve with his shield out, but there was no threat anymore. Bruce was only seven feet tall, mostly flesh-coloured, and still shrinking. He was still the brightest thing in the hall which was mostly steel girders and bare bulbs. And bodies.

Three entrances loomed, one on each wall. In one three people were kneeling. They wore white coats, matching their drained faces.

“How many, James?” Natasha was dragging a shiny silver blanket out of a pouch on her hip for Bruce.

“...Twenty-four.” And he glared at the right-most entrance.

“James?”

“Nothing,” he said, but only after a long pause. “Twenty-four.”

SHIELD staff and STRIKE teams were starting to stream in past them. Whenever they looked at them, they looked at the white stars and not their faces. Natasha had been right: some things didn’t change.

“Then your job’s mostly done, boys.” Natasha whispered something soothing in Russian to Bruce, guiding him into a corner out of the way. “We can get you a ride as soon as we can, but can you keep Bruce company?”

For his part, Bruce looked out of it, swaying from side to side. His eyes focused on nothing but whatever was happening on the inside of his head.

“You’ll be okay, Bruce,” Steve said and the two of them guided him to the floor. Once down there he collapsed up against the wall, face pressed to cool metal.

Steve had handled Bucky in states like this. Bruce wouldn’t appreciate the methods he used on his best guy though, so he tried patting him on the shoulder for starters.

Bucky was still glaring at the wall.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s like… I keep thinking there’s someone in there.”

There was a small sign next to the dark doorway that said ‘COLD STORAGE’ in neat block letters. SHIELD had been in there already and declared it clear. All that was in there were pipes wider than Steve lying down and running from floor to ceiling.

“Your Talent ever go screwy?” said Bucky, planting himself next to Steve on the floor.

“Not that I remember.”

Like all Talents Steve had gone through testing, though being first had meant that some tests had been a little makeshift. Bucky hadn’t had that. He’d had Steve and the others leafing through the guidelines and then the battlefield. “We’ll look at it tomorrow,” he said.

***

ABOMINATION. STANDING BY.

ARMOURY. STANDING BY.

MACHINE. STANDING BY.

PHANTOM. STANDING BY.

TITAN. STANDING BY.

***

“Steve.”

Men and woman in white coats and suits had been herded up from their hiding places and into SHIELD custody on the surface. Natasha strolled up from the left one.

“We’ve got a door that won’t give. Can you force it? Not you, James,” she added as Bucky stepped forward too. “I still need someone with Bruce.”

Steve met Bucky’s eyes, waiting for the little nod. He remembered Ross separating them, trying to give Medical a chance to stick Bucky full of sedatives. But Bucky gave the nod and sat down next to Bruce again. He didn’t have to have a Talent to feel Bucky’s eyes on the back of his neck.

“Why didn’t you want Bucky here?” he asked Natasha. Bucky would be listening in, but he had a right to know. He wasn’t made of glass.

“Because of this,” she said, reaching out and touching the neat plaque on the wall. It was made of steel and the neat letters spelt out ‘REEDUCATION’. Biological reeducation: a clean phrase hiding the truth of what it was. Forcing Talents through torture.

The door was heavy and with no handle on the outside. No escapes. But Steve put his shoulder to it.

“Bucky,” he said under his breath, “don’t come in here.”

He put all his Talent into it, digging his heels in. Metal groaned and then gave with a scream. What first hit him was the stink. There were no windows underground and any vents had been doing a poor job. Stale smells of urine and blood wafted out accompanied by the sting of strong disinfectant.

“Jesus,” said a STRIKE member behind him.

The entire room was easy to clean despite the smell. The centrepiece was the table, all heavy restraints and metal polished until it gleamed. Paradoxically for a torture chamber the manacles were padded and there was another pad for the head. Underneath it, in the sharp shadows cast by the harsh lights, there was a plastic bag. Steve stooped to get it. It said ‘NON-MEDICAL WASTE’ and what it was full of was clothes. Shirt, pants, a single canvas shoe. He put it on the table, then took it off.

Three STRIKE members were clustered around a small television set on the back wall. Away from the table and this sad little bag of clothes.

“They had a DVD player?” said one.

“What’s a DVD?” This seemed a better thing to focus on that the rest of this terrible room. He headed over to the table, seeing a pile of plastic cases, a pot full of pens, and the screen with-

“It is not the _voltage_ that kills a man, you see,” said the round-faced, little man on the screen, “but the amps.” He was speaking to a larger man that loomed over the shivering body on the table. “The human body can withstand plenty of voltage on a _low_ aptitude so we can increase it by an extra ten percent. No. No, twenty percent. Yes. The good Sergeant will survive.”

And the person tied to the table, the person that started to scream, the person who couldn’t escape the straps and the electrodes was-

***

If he had taken any longer perhaps he would have been too late, but when he approached the table, Bucky was alive. As he leant over him, one of his eyes fluttered open.

“Steve?”

“It’s me.” He tore the straps from their moorings, thinking of how Hydra had left him here to die. “It’s me, Buck.” Touching the straps, touching Bucky, covered his hands with grime and blood. “We need to get out.”

He stunk. He staggered like he was drunk. But Bucky lifted his head to look at Steve, through the one eye that wasn’t stuck closed with blood and swelling.

And then there was-

The Hydra Talent screamed and the ground under Steve fell away, the sound wave churning up the soft mud. But Steve was the only thing between these three Talents and the prisoners and Bucky. So he lunged forward, heedless of gunfire and Talents, and then Bucky was there. His face was blank and terrible as he lifted the teleport Talent off his feet and broke his neck and then there was-

They’d stopped to let the wounded rest by a narrow creek and Bucky was leaning against a tree, eyes closed and body shaking. Steve had a blanket and scrap of sweater that would have to do for warmth and hygiene, but when he touched Bucky’s hand he was gone. He was suddenly ten metres away, face twisted in fear and then there was-

Bucky sat on the hospital bed, half-slumped from the sedatives coursing through his system. His eyes gleamed feral in the dark. And then there was-

***

“Steve.”

Somehow that screaming was in his ears and rattling around his teeth, even though the table now had no television. Steve followed the line of his arm down to his shield. The edge of his shield was hovering above a mess of glass, metal, and wires. So it had been him.

“Captain?” And Natasha was just beyond his shield and she was standing with him in this room where Hydra had tortured people to produce Talents just like- just like-

“I can’t breathe.” His free hand came up to splay across his chest like he could reach in and break the invisible one that was squeezing his lungs and his heart. “Can’t breathe.”

“Get Medical up here!” said Natasha from about a thousand miles away. Hadn’t Camp Leigh been where the doctors told him that his asthma was gone, that his scoliosis and his heart murmurs were gone and he could go fight? But his lungs couldn’t expand.

“Steve?”

 _Bucky wasn’t supposed to be here_ ! He looked wildly around the room ( _Natasha, the table, armed men, the table_ ) to tell him to leave this damned place. But he wasn’t here, he was in his ear.

“ _Steve_ ,” said Bucky on the earpiece. “Your heart! What’s happening?”

They’d shown him how to use the earpiece. He put his ( _shaking_ ) hand on it. Someone was trying to tug on his arm, but he staggered away. No words were coming out of him. Only a sickeningly familiar wheeze.

“I’m coming over.”

“Negative, James!” said someone in his earpiece as well. “Do not come here.” All Steve could do was mouth a word that could have been no.

“Then get somewhere I _can_ go!”

It was just like lifting one of the big weights outside. Get both legs steady underneath him. Use the shield to help, push against it against the floor. Use Natasha to guide him away from ( _the table the table_ ) from here. Get out into the corridor and gasp out “Now, now, now!” and _fall_.

Bucky was there to catch him. Familiar arms folded around him and Steve drew a ragged breath like he’d been drowning.

“I got you, Steve.” Good voice, familiar voice. “I got you, handsome.”

There was a slice of missed time before things started to seep back into his world gradually. He was kneeling but his upper body was being supported by Bucky. Someone had gotten his uniform undone, and Bucky’s hands were on his bare skin, rubbing his back in slow circles. Like he used to do for his asthma. He couldn’t quite get a handle on the rest of it yet, but Bucky’s hands were nice.

“What’s in there?” said Bucky from somewhere far away. Steve’s head was on his shoulder, in the hollow of his throat.

“Processing,” said Fury and Steve almost shoved himself up, almost screamed into Fury’s face to stop, but he couldn’t move. All Bucky did was flinch the once even when Fury continued. “Hydra have been continuing Zola’s work in manufacturing and modifying Talents.”

“You shouldn’t have put him in there.” One hand slid up into the short hairs at the nape of Steve’s neck.

“We thought Captain Rogers was a low risk.”

“Looks like no one thinks in the future,” spat Bucky. “Did you idiots not remember that he pulled me outta the first one? You think seeing it once wasn’t enough?”

“This is war, Sergeant.”

“And we did enough!” Bucky shifted underneath him and Steve could picture the face: the one he wore when he waded into one of Steve’s fights. “We _died_ for this war and what the fuck have you done for him other than shove him into another uniform? You’ve all been worrying about the Mad Talent that you forgot that he saw all this shit too!”

“If that’s how you feel, then we can arrange-”

“Did it my-goddamn-self, thanks.” Bucky’s hands stilled on him but his arms tightened their grip. Protective. They were always protective of each other. “We’re not weapons you can just put away, Fury. Better not forget it.”

“Bucky,” breathed Steve, because he was protective of Bucky. If he didn’t take his attention off Fury, Bucky was going to hit him.

“Hey. You okay?” He supported Steve as he parted from the familiar shelter of Bucky and sat back on his heels. The sound of boots behind him was the sound of Fury leaving.

“I’m sorry.” Bucky’s hands went up to his face. His cheeks were wet.

“You think I’m some kind of hypocrite?”

“What?”

“You’ve been there for all my panic attacks.”

All _my_ panic attacks, he had said, because there were now Bucky’s panic attacks and Steve’s panic attacks. His lungs and voice and legs trembled for one moment with the enormity of it.

“Is that what it was?” said Steve to the dog-tags (ROGERS, STEVEN GRANT) hanging around Bucky’s throat.

“I’m not an expert, but yeah. That’s what I think.”

He touched Steve’s bare shoulders briefly then zipped him back up. His generous mouth was in a worried line, but Bucky had been here before and survived. He wasn’t made of glass.

“They had… They had movies.”

“In there.”

He put his hands on Bucky ( _Bucky who was not on the table, Bucky who Steve would never let go back on the table_ ) and drew him in. Who cared who saw them? How could loving Bucky be even close to a sin compared to what had happened here.

“I smashed them all. I’m sorry, but they had you.”

Every muscle in Bucky’s body went rigid. For five heartbeats they stayed like that just like how Bucky had been holding him.

“It’s smashed?”

“With the shield.”

“Thank you.” His mouth was trembling but he kissed him again and again. “Thank you.”

There was strength in the both of them to get up when one would have failed. Not for the first time, Steve wondered what it would have been like to come to the future alone without Bucky on his left.

“I’m calling the number on the card,” he said, because if Bucky could then he could too. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“Good,” said Bucky.

***

“Hey, doc?”

After every transformation it took Bruce time to come back to himself, lifting himself out of the rage of the Other Guy and then again out of the mist in between. Someone had put a space blanket around him. Bucky and Steve were nearby, sitting against the wall. They were holding hands and getting some strange looks, but Bucky winked at him when he caught him looking.

“Yes, sorry,” he said to the nice STRIKE member who was hovering above him. “What do you need?”

“You know anything about computers? We forced open another door and we don’t know what to make of it.”

“It’s not my speciality, but I could take a look.”

Both Bucky and Steve gave him a questioning look (a look so similar and synchronised that Bruce had to smile at it) like they were asking to follow him, but he shook his head. He followed the STRIKE team down several flights of stairs that terminated in a tiny landing and an open door. The large hall beyond that contained ranks of computers, if they could still be called that, the old kind with drums of tape. Were there were boxes of punch card somewhere too?

“Um, I don’t know anything about these, sorry. I think it’s just junk they weren’t bothered to haul out.” He took a few more steps in. Blinking lights dotted the shadowy edges of the room, harsh fluorescents lit the centre. So there was something working down here.

Then he felt it in the back of his brain - a feeling like a missing tooth or a black hole. Natasha’s Talent didn’t feel like this; no one could remember Bucky’s Talent; and Steve was upstairs.

“I got Talent activity down here,” he said into his earpiece. “I can’t see anyone.”

“I’ll be down now.” That was Natasha.

“There’s no one there,” said Bucky, though he didn’t sound too sure.

“I’m coming too.” That was Steve.

Bruce shouldn’t worry if three Talents were on their way. No matter how unpleasant this Talent might feel there was no reason to bring the Other Guy back into it.

“Banner,” whispered a voice, making him jump and turn slightly green at the edges. “Robert Bruce. Born December 18th, 1969.”

The voice came from a stack of monitors topped with a camera and all of them showing the same blurry green face. As Bruce edged closer he realised that for such old tech it wasn’t dusty at all. A modern keyboard lay in front of the monitors like an offering.

“That’s me.” Bruce stepped up, trailed by an armed man. The others would be here soon. “Are you the Talent I can feel?”

“Yes.” The voice was male, heavily modulated through the speakers. He had an accent. German, Bruce thought. “Yes, I am a Talent, Dr. Banner.”

“But I don’t see you. Where are you?”

You needed to see a Talent and see them using a Talent to detect them, so long as they weren’t like Bucky, or invisible, or an illusionist.

“I am quite easy to spot, Dr. Banner. You are standing in my brain after all.”

“Did Hydra do this to you? Did-”

“ _You_ !” And there was Bucky appearing in the room like a tornado. “You’re supposed to be _dead_!” A gap in memory and Bucky had his fist through a screen. His chest was heaving.

“Barnes, James Buchanan. Born-”

“ _Shut up_!”

“-March 10th, 1917. My first Winter Soldier.”

“Like fuck I am!”

Panic was edging every word. Another memory blank and Bucky had his hand clamped around Bruce’s arm. His fingers were like a vise and that almost brought the Other Guy before Bucky moved and Bruce realised that he was dragging him away. Protecting him.

The accent was Swiss, not German. Impossibly, there could only be one man that had pioneered the awful art of biological reeducation and terrified Bucky like this. On the screens, the face approximated a smile.

“And where one goes, so the other follows,” said Arnim Zola. “Rogers-”

“ _Don’t you dare say his name_ !” Bucky’s fingers were going to leave bruises. “Why aren’t you _dead_? You’re supposed to be dead!” But there was Steve, putting his body and his shield between them both and the screens.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“I thought I recognised your work upstairs,” said Steve.

“It is my work, indeed. Your SSR repatriated me to the United States for my weapons and my Talent research.” Bucky finally let go of Bruce’s arm to put both of his hands on Steve. “And when I received a terminal diagnosis my mind was preserved here. All that so I may continue my work with Hydra. I am the most successful manufacturer of Talents, and you will note that I say manufacturer, yes. I started with men who were already Talents like Sergeant Barnes and Tesseract, but I have made _Übermensch_ out of ordinary human beings. And then hear that SHIELD had uncovered two lost American Talents. Shield and my wayward Winter Soldier.” Bucky made a spitting noise, putting his head between Steve’s shoulder blades and closing his eyes.

“But why send people after them?” said Bruce. “We didn’t find you until after you made the first move.”

“Because we Talents are so rare now. That makes each one that more devastating if they are moved into the right place at the right time. I must remove my opponent’s pieces so that mine are free to move. And here you all are.”

“Run,” said Bucky, shoving Bruce, pulling Steve back. “Run!”

“FACTOR,” said Zola, voice booming out through the entire complex. “OFFENDER. THIRTY. PATTERN. MAJORITY. IMPERIAL.”

“Steve, upstairs!” said Bucky.

“The master trigger phrase has been activated,” said Zola smugly. “Phantom, Abomination, Machine, Armoury and Titan are activated. Goodbye.”

His skin was tingling with energy, all the hair standing up on end. Oh no.

“Steve, it’s a teleporter!” he said just before his world was turning upside down.

***

One moment Bucky had his hands on Steve and Bruce and the next he was falling to the cold ground alone, crumpling onto a road. Parahuman reflexes were all that saved him. He ‘ported straight up as the yellow taxi swerved to avoid him and crashed into another car for its troubles.

New Jersey to New York. He ‘ported again, this time to the sidewalk. Once, under very dire circumstances, he’d teleported over fifty miles in one go and nearly scrambled his brains in the process. He probably would have ended up in a wall or something if he hadn’t had Steve as a target. Steve was always on his internal compass and he’d been thrown three hundred metres away to the south.

Someone screamed just down the street and suddenly New Yorkers were a great tide pushing themselves away.

Two men were standing over a body, watching it like kids trying to figure out why their toy had broken. They were dressed in black and their heads were shaved. And they were like Bucky. Manufactured Mad Talents. He could tell by the blank faces.

When they struck it was the one on the metal legs first. Both legs and arms had been replaced with spindly but strong metal limbs. It must have been the one Zola had christened Machine. Bucky leapt backwards to avoid the sharp points that broke the sidewalk. Then he was going backwards again to avoid floating knives made out of shimmering air. Sure cut deep enough.

But Armoury, the man behind the knives, had left himself open and  Bucky ‘ported right up and kicked him through the big window of a fancy skyscraper.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Steve,” he muttered under his breath. He’d left his rifle behind, but he always had a knife and he palmed it now.

***

The woman in front of Natasha (black - painfully thin - shaved head with two long scars) would be Phantom. She floated through the air, Talent and white light pouring off her. And she phased through concrete and what she phased through froze over. So don’t let her do that.

She was also a teleporter, which Natasha learnt when she got a clear shot. And that she didn’t just phase was telling to Natasha. No iron then. She drew her baton.

***

Man grow talons and scales. Talent. Hulk smash it. Hulk smash fists onto back into big mouth. Put car through it. Throw other car. It grow big but Hulk strong.

***

Just after he got his Talent, Steve used to wake up in the night disorientated in his new body. But at its worse, he hadn’t felt like Titan. His shoulders and chest had bulked up so much that he jaw was lost in the sheer mass, head tiny on shoulders wider than a truck.

Steve flung himself at him so that the civilians could get away. Titan uprooted a bus stop and threw it at him, glass raining down onto Steve’s shield. When that didn’t work he grabbed for a screaming man and Steve distracted him by throwing his shield between Titan’s tiny mad eyes.

Super-strength had been the single most common Talent. Steve wasn’t as strong as Titan. But he’d fight anyway. It was the right thing to do.

***

“Sir?”

Tony Stark withdrew blinking from the world of wires and circuitry. JARVIS had that tone which meant this was not the first time he’d tried to get his attention.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but we have an intruder in the Tower.”

“Well what do I pay you for? Take care of it.”

“You do not actually pay me, sir, rather I can make use of certain-”

“JARVIS.”

“At once, sir.”

The nearest screen turned to footage of the lobby. There was a man in the middle, surrounded by knives and guns and shields made out of… translucent air.

“Might I add that there is a lot of Talent activity in the city at this moment, sir,” said JARVIS as, on the screen, the lobby filled with frantic blue energy breaking shields and knives with ease.

“Time to suit up then. Fresh air and all that.”

“I do not think the air in New York counts as fresh.”

“Well I’m sure you were raised on Alpine fields and, and milk maids.” On screen, the enemy Talent fell to the ground crumbling to dust as he went. “Ready then?”

“When you are, sir.”

***

Bucky had had to ignore Armoury for a moment to dodge Machine’s probing limbs. But when he got some breathing space, Armoury had been crumbling away into dust. This fact was concerning but would have to wait.

As Machine tried to spear Bucky, he caught a glimpse of white teeth in his mouth. Not gunmetal grey. And those white teeth gave Bucky an idea. Turns out that the metal might have replaced Machine’s arms and legs and chest but his throat was still flesh and blood. So he stuck his knife right through it.

Now for Steve.

***

Natasha leant against the car wincing in pain, leg trembling and when Phantom reached out with translucent limbs she lunged and sent electricity through that cold flesh. Again and again with Phantom wedged against the car door until she fell to the ground, solid and dead.

The world lurched around her and it was lucky that her leg injury had been an act because Natasha really needed to be steady right now. Cold brick under her head helped a little.

“Ms Rushman. Or is it Romanov?” Stark’s Talent felt bright and brash, just like the red-and-gold of his armour.

“Hello, Tony,” she said as he landed.

“So I can’t help but notice you’re having a party out on the streets of Manhattan.”

“We dropped in unexpectedly.” The world had stopped trembling at its edges so she put her baton away. “What have we got?”

“Tall, green, and angry’s taking on a dragon-thing on Broadway. Want to check it out?”

“Sounds fun.”

***

Steve leapt as a car was flung end-over-end towards him. He felt the air move as it passed too close. But he was close too, close enough to take Titan’s arm and slam the edge of the shield into his wrist with a sickening crack. Titan howled in rage and pain and swung his good hand at Steve. His fist was twice the size of Steve’s head, but super-strength didn’t mean much if you couldn’t move it around. Titan was slow. Slower than Steve and definitely slower than-

Bucky appeared in mid-air, knife in hand, landing squarely on Titan’s shoulders. The Hydra Talent was hampered by all those swollen muscles and he couldn’t dislodge him until Bucky had driven the knife in a dozen times.

“Hi,” he said, suddenly at Steve’s side. “Thought you could use a hand.”

“I had him on the ropes.”

Titan turned on the two of them and it was like a thousand fights in Brooklyn alleys, Steve and Bucky against the world.

People would never fear Bucky’s Talent if they could only remember how he _moved_. Dodging Titan’s fists like he was at a dance hall, sliding his fingers along Steve’s shoulders as he moved behind the shield, beautiful even with a bloody knife in his hand. Titan couldn’t even come close, not to Steve and Bucky, not to Shield and Winter.

“Go high!” he blurted out, high on the fight and joy, when he saw Titan start to stumble. He didn’t have to wait for an answer. When he charged it, he felt one foot light on his shoulder and they hit together with shield and knife.

“Did you use me as a springboard?” he asked Bucky, as though he couldn’t turn his head to see the boot print on his black uniform.

“You’re a big guy, you’ll live.” Bucky was stunning even against the cracked and broken buildings and smashed cars and gigantic corpse. He wore Steve’s dog-tags like an engagement ring. “You okay?”

Steve pulled him in and kissed him, hand on the back of Bucky’s head, Bucky’s hand on the rim of his shield. As kisses went - and there had been so many - it was certainly in the top ten.

“Steve,” he said as soon as they broke apart for air, “we gotta get back to Jersey.”

“You don’t go without me.”

Already Steve was eyeing up the blocked roads, wondering if the trains were still running. But then the clamour of a Talent came into their head and a knight in red and gold was landing next to them. He had Natasha held in his arms, pale but determined.

“Hello, boys.”

“Son of a bitch,” said the knight, the helmet sliding away. For one moment Steve though ‘ _Howard?’_ before remembering that it had been seventy years and Howard had died in 1991. “So it was true.” Stark looked from Steve to Bucky, perhaps mentally comparing them to black-and-white footage. “I hear you need to get to Jersey.”

***

It was all still too slow, even though Bucky knew he had to be realistic. They went to the same building where Armoury met his end, entering the lobby through the door next to the window that he’d shattered.

“JARVIS get the helicopter ready.”

“Yes, sir,” said a voice accompanied by a Talent but no body.

“Oh, right, this is-”

“JARVIS, sirs and madam. This is not the time, sir.”

There was no space in Bucky’s head to be paranoid about any of it, or to enjoy his first time in a helicopter, not when Zola was in reach. He could spare only a little awareness for Steve’s hand around his. Most of him was consumed with the heart beats too slow to pick up because they had been on standby ( _weapons to take out of the drawer when needed_ ) and there had been another one, that Zola had not played and he thought he knew why. And he when he’d confirmed it ( _opening the secret doors and bringing more of Hydra’s dirty secrets into the light_ ) he went down into Zola’s brain. Bucky stood in front of the screens, the one he shattered and all the rest. He always knew where Steve was and Steve was just ten feet away behind him and slightly to the right.

“So I’m alive,” he said to the face that he saw in all his nightmares. “So’s Steve and all the rest. And all your Winter Soldiers are dead.”

He stood there in the middle of the floor, listening to the click, whirr, and hum of all the machines and feeling the great sucking absence that was Zola.

“Not so fucking talkative now, are you?”

“You should know, Sergeant Barnes, that I am not so easy to kill. This Talent that keeps me alive, it is very durable. Burn these tapes, smash these machines I will come back.”

“But it ain’t your Talent. Is it, Zola?” Bucky tipped his head to one side. “You’re not the kind to go on the table yourself. So you’re using someone else’s. And I found her.”

Codename Memento had been tucked away in what was the closest thing to suspended animation. One heartbeat every minute, oxygen forced through her lungs by machines. Flesh amputated when it started to rot. No clean ice for her, not when they couldn’t risk her Talent failing.

“The doctors are looking her over. They’re gonna do the honourable thing, Zola. They’re going to take all the machines off. And when she dies so do you.”

“Not entirely. I will always be with you, Sergeant Barnes. I am the seed that your Talent grew from. I am in your new muscles, your new speed. I am in your brain.”

“Maybe. I won’t lie. What you did to me fucked me up and I didn’t deserve it.” Behind him Steve shifted. “But I’m getting better. I got bad days, but the good days...” And this time he did turn to Steve, “The good days make me so _fucking_ happy.”

“Sentiment-”

“No! It’s a fact, Zola,” he snapped towards the screen. “You treated people like things and then you made yourself a thing, ticking away down here in the dark. I still got a body. I still got a chance. We got a chance.”

He turned and caught Steve by his left hand, pulling him. Steve was mighty and powerful, but God could he go gently as well. He was warm against him and his mouth burnt on Bucky’s.

“And that’s something else for you to think on,” he said, the warmth of Steve’s lips still on his, “you Nazi fuck.”

Then it happened. Down in the very depths of the bunker, in the tiny bed, Memento's heart stopped. The screens went blank and in their cases, tape started to smoulder and burn. It stunk of disinfectant and old blood.

Steve smelt of sweat and Bucky took deep breaths of it.

“Let’s go home,” he got out against Steve’s broad shoulders, “I hate Jersey.”

***

At some point during the debrief, Bucky squeezed Steve’s arm. He wasn’t there when Steve turned around, so he excused himself quietly but firmly.

Out in the corridor, Bucky was hunched over on a chair. There was an armed guard leaning over him, but all honest concern so Steve just waved him off. By this point, he was an old hand at being shelter and Bucky was drawn up against his broad chest easily. What could be a more important use for this Talent and this new body?

“It’s okay, Buck,” he said, running a hand up and down his back. Firm enough to be grounding pressure, gentle enough to pleasurable. “It’s okay, I love you. You’re safe and I love you.”

“Steve,” Bucky managed to gasp at the tail-end of it. “Steve.”

“I’m here.” And in the future no one could do anything if he chose to take Bucky’s head in his hands and kiss him.

Natasha arrived ten minutes later when Bucky was still in the protective circle of Steve’s arm, shivering even with Steve’s body heat and Steve’s borrowed jacket over his shoulders. His head was tucked under Steve’s chin.

“Are you our ride home, Natasha?”

“They want you back in there, Steve. Just for thirty minutes, but I can tell them-”

“No,” croaked Bucky. “Just get it over with.”

“You’re sure?” Bucky looked worn, but his eyes were clear and he was already levering himself out of Steve’s embrace.

“It’ll take longer to come back another day.” His hands were trembling on his lap and the rest of him was trying to retreat under Steve’s jacket. “I’ll just sleep here.”

“I’ll watch him if you like,” said Natasha.

“See? Listen to the chief headcase, Steve.”

“You’re so damn competitive.” Bucky’s trembling mouth twitched upwards into a smile. “Not a headcase.”

Bucky snorted and, when Steve stood up, he slid across all the chairs, shutting his eyes and falling asleep instantly.

The debrief in fact took twenty-six minutes and when he stepped out into the room, Bucky was awake again, still tucked into the too-big jacket.

“It’s different for us,” he was saying to Natasha before turning to Steve with another shaky smile.

“You’re up.” Bucky had been doing so well lately, but what with one thing ( _Steve’s first panic attack_ ) and another ( _Arnim Zola_ ) he was fully expecting him to be out for hours. He dared to feel a fluttering of hope in his chest.

“I’m up,” he agreed. “We were just talking about you.”

“Yeah?” He reached out, helping Bucky to his feet.

“Natasha thinks it was the asthma that got me going. But I know it was the scoliosis.” He grinned unrepentantly. “Gave you a little wiggle in your walk.”

They probably could hear Steve’s laughter in the briefing room, but in the future who cared.

It was back in their apartment, warm with snow falling outside again, that the fatigue hit. It was barely eight o’clock, but Steve could have slept for years. Bucky took him by the hand and together they changed and crawled under the quilt. There was nothing erotic in that or in the way their hands ran over each other. There was only comfort and grounding.

“Steve,” sighed Bucky as Steve’s hand traced the line of his collarbone, “he’s dead, isn’t he? Dead and gone.”

“Yeah, Buck. He is.”

He ran his hand down Bucky’s spine, then pulled him close.

“They shouldn’t have separated us to begin with,” said Bucky. “Who else is going to look after you?”

“You think I need looking after?”

“Yes.” His arms stilled around Steve’s waist. “You can’t tell when you’re not okay. Too busy chasing after bullies.”

“But that’s what you’re here for.”

“Damn right, I am.” His eyes fluttered closed as Steve kissed him on the forehead. “Go to sleep, sweetheart.”

They slept tangled together even closer than in the ice. And if they were too tired for dreams, then that kept the nightmares away too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'I've Heard That Song Before' charted in 1943. It was recorded by our good friend Harry James. 
> 
> So last chapter's coming up and I'm super excited to start writing it because I am a massive sap. I won't give toooo much away but there might be a surprise ;)


	8. Rumours Are Flying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I said that last chapter was the penultimate one, I inadvertently lied. Since the last chapter was getting so unwieldy and I wanted to rewrite the second half I split in two so that you guys won't be waiting too long.

From the day one, the news was full of the destruction in New York, especially what Bruce and Abomination had done to Broadway. Pictures and videos of Talents sprung up quickly. Even merchandise. Somewhere there was a company printing off shirts and phone cases featuring white stars, Tony’s armour, and Steve and Bucky’s good looks. Natasha had been tempted to order a matched pair of shirts for them, but then a different type of story broke.

Bucky was the one who answered the door. He was sleepy, but not with post-panic attack grogginess. Not if his rumpled hair and Steve-sized hoodie were anything to go by.

“Morning,” he said. His hands were wrapped around a mug of coffee and he looked utterly relaxed.

“It’s one-thirty.”

Bucky shrugged,

“We got up late.”

He stood aside to let Natasha and Bruce into the apartment. Steve was at the stove presiding over a breakfast that could have fed four. His file did say that his faster metabolism came with proportionally larger food bills.

“Good morning!” God they were almost too cheery. “How are you?”

“Cuts and bruises. Nothing that won’t heal.”

Bruce fumbled with his glasses, almost dropping them before them putting them back on his face. He couldn’t settle on a nervous gesture lately. Honestly it was a miracle that she’d managed to get him out of his apartment at all.

“You okay, Bruce?” said Bucky. Suddenly he was behind Steve, leaning up against his back. Natasha kept her face carefully schooled into a natural expression. Bruce on the other hand had to be nudged in the ribs.  
“Oh, yes. I’m okay.”

Bucky looked skeptical,

“Not your fault.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him.” By the time Natasha had put her jacket away, Bucky was occupied with absorbing as much body heat as possible through Steve’s very tight T-shirt.

“You guys want some toast or coffee?” said Steve.

“Coffee, please.”

“Hot water?” said Bruce, digging in his pocket for tea bags.

“Hey, you bum.” Steve rolled one shoulder attempting to dislodge Bucky. “Go get the drinks.”

One moment Bucky was there, the next he wasn’t. He was on the other side of the kitchen, opening up a cupboard.

“What are you doing when you do that?” said Natasha, playing along.

“You won’t remember.” He took down a stack of plates and a mug, setting them out.

“Try me.”

He shook his head, but obliged her,

“I’m a short-range teleporter. Don’t hog all the bacon!” he snapped at Steve, which meant he totally ignored the look that passed between Bruce and Natasha.

The boys had spent their post-Zola days venturing out with their new IDs and army back-pay (and a few discreet and loyal watchers). It had all been quite normal. They’d gone to a bakery and ordered two large boxes of deluxe pastries to be delivered to the ICU at New York-Presbyterian. An art supply store. A pharmacy.

“We’re looking at places,” said Steve, portioning out food between plates. “Not that this isn’t nice, but it’s not forever.”

“How’s it going?”

“New York’s always been expensive.”

Bucky handed out the mugs and then went for his breakfast. He had one plate, Steve had two, heavily loaded.

“So you checking up on us?”

Bucky lounged across the armchair with his one plate on his lap. He was in touching distance of Steve, who taken over the table.

“In a way.” She slid her phone - the one she didn’t mind handing over - out of her bag. “Have you been keeping up with the news?”

“We don’t get the papers, sorry.”

“It’ll just be us,” said Bucky, tipping the point of his toast carefully into the yolk of a fried egg. “Don’t need to see it a second time.”

“So the secret that you came out the ice is out. Don’t feel bad. It was unavoidable with how distinctive you are. This might be New York, but even New Yorkers will pay attention when Talents start fighting.”

“We couldn’t hide forever.”

“But that’s not why we’re here.” She had the right page already loaded. “It’s because of this.”

Steve was the closest so he took the phone. He didn’t say anything. Just a few days ago he’d taken on a Mad Talent single-handed. Just a few minutes ago he’d been completely okay with having Bucky draped over him, and wearing his hoodie. But this was world-wide.

“It’s a good picture.” Bucky set aside his food and slithered off his chair. His protective instinct was strong, and no Red Room asset would have pressed against their handler’s side and kissed them on the cheek with such sincerity.

On screen they were caught in mid-kiss. Steve’s hand was in Bucky’s hair, Bucky’s hands were on the rim of that very distinctive shield and the small of Steve’s back. You didn’t need Natasha’s training to see the relationship.

“There’s a couple of options for how we handle this and it’s totally up to you. We can make a statement, or we can try and bury it. Say it was photoshop or- I wouldn’t read the comments.”

“We’re from the forties, we’ve heard worse.” But Bucky stopped scrolling and curled himself back around Steve.

“Would you mind if we talk this over?” said Steve.

“Go ahead.”

The two of them vanished into the bedroom.

“They’re taking it well.” Natasha took a sip of her coffee. “And how are you, Bruce?”

“Oh. You know.” Bruce took his hand out of his pocket to smooth his hair down. It trembled. “I broke New York again. Same old.”

“Would have been worse if a Hydra Talent had been roaming free.”

“I know,” he said, eyes cast down onto the floor.

The lovebirds emerged after five minutes. Steve wore a determined look. All he needed was his shield and he'd be ready to go into battle.

“We’ll do it,” he said. “We’ll come clean.”

“Coming out is what they say now,” said Natasha. Coming clean made it sound like a crime, which it had been only a few months ago in the boy’s personal timeline.

“We need some time first before… coming out. A week if you can get it.”

“I think they can be placated.” Natasha tapped on the phone screen. She also had Bucky’s Army file saved to it, ready for the _other_ piece of news.

“Either of you want to be a witness?” said Bucky suddenly.

“To what?” said Bruce, nervously. Natasha could already guess from the way Bucky’s arm was around Steve, his head on his shoulder.

“Our wedding obviously.”

“Oh. Congrats.”

“Thanks.”

“You know,” said Natasha carefully, “the whole ‘living in sin’ thing really isn’t an issue any more.”

“I know.” Steve put his own arm around the man on his left. “We decided on this the first night here. Engaged soon as Bucky told me that it was possible. But it’s the furthest thing from a whim. I did some reading up. I want medical power of attorney, and we need the right to be with each other if we end up in another hospital. But more importantly, I know the kind of thing that people are going to say. Even if it’s legal now, there’s going to be people who think just like they did back in the forties. And I don’t want to give them a chance to say what we have isn’t real.”

“Been practically married since before the war anyway,” said Bucky.

“It’s been a long time,” agreed Steve.

It was telling that they’d gone for the ‘in sickness’ argument. But it wasn’t too surprising with their panic attacks and their line of work.

“You have your IDs, right? Then you can get married. I’ll send you the city hall link.”

“Thanks.” He turned to Bucky, who wasn’t suffering for being trapped against Steve’s side. “It’s not just practical for me, Buck, I-”

“When have you ever been practical, Steve? Christ, you’ve been talking about getting married since 1938. Enjoy it.”

Steve’s mouth curled up, and Natasha politely cleared her throat before they started to fall into each other’s adoring gaze.

“As cute as you both are,” said Natasha, “we also have another thing.”

“What now?” said Bucky. “They catch us necking through the windows?”

It was best to deliver the blow quickly whether in or out of combat, so while Bucky was stealing body heat from his fiance, Natasha said,

“You’re a short-range teleporter.”

He froze instantly, knocked out of his happy relaxed state like he’d taken one of Steve’s punches.

“So, umm,” said Bruce, emerging from the sofa, “What Nat’s trying to say… Well it seems you don’t have the amnesia field any more.”

“I don’t have…”

“Well, it actually brought you and Steve some time. Everyone knows that you had it. But, um, someone looked you up on YouTube and they could remember everything you did in the old footage from the forties. So,” Bruce shrank into his jacket under Bucky’s gaze, “So, um, there we are.”

“So what does that mean?” He broke away from Steve, suddenly in front of Bruce. “Am I _losing_ my Talents is that it?”

“Bucky.” This was going to be a good way to rile up Bruce’s Other Guy.

“Bucky.” That was Steve. He went round to stand up Bucky, putting his hands on Bucky’s shoulders. If that wasn’t a perfect example of how they worked then what was? Going round in circles, one protecting the other and then bring protected in turn. “Bucky, it’s okay.”

“I _need_ them. You need them.”

“Um.” That was the sound of Bruce remerging from his shell. “You’re not going to lose your Talents. I mean, the amnesia effect wasn’t a conscious effort like the rest of it, right?”

“It just happened,” said Bucky, from the shelter of Steve Rogers.

“There’s never been a case of a Talent losing their powers permanently,” said Bruce with a rueful smile. “But side-effects can come and go. Like when you’re doing running and as you do more you can go for longer without getting tired. And while there’s never been an amnesia effects like yours,” Bruce’s hands were out of his pockets, gesturing as he spoke without a single tremble, “we have so much data on teleporters.”

“The SIS.”

“They kept a lot of records and they’re declassified, most of them, since the Secure Information Service shut down. And by the end of the war they had over five hundred teleporters moving men and info all over Europe. All of them could do more than when they started without, I don’t know, shattering as many windows or making as much noise. Um, we’ve seen you teleporting around the place so that’s fine. What about the rest?”

“You got the file, right?”

Bucky’s file, when it came to Talents, was patchwork. The Howling Commandos had done their best with the guidelines, but he was still one of the early Talents and one that had been thrown into the fray too soon. But Bruce nodded, sliding notebook and pen out of his bag.

Bucky threw himself into somersaults, flips, and contortions the human body was not meant to allow. He finished by balancing on Steve’s shoulder one-handed and upside down.

“Still works,” he said placidly from his perch. He did the splits and then lowered himself down, unfurling himself back into Steve’s radius. “But why?” he said, once Steve had an arm around his waist. “Is it because-” there was the briefest of pauses, the briefest flash of gritted teeth “-Zola’s dead?”

“It might be. This is still… uncharted territory. Maybe it’s even because you and Steve were outed?” Bruce wringed his hands, “I know you don’t like doctors, but we can officialise your Talent for you. Nothing invasive!” he added as the shutters went down behind Bucky’s eyes. “And we don’t want to interrupt anything, you know, with the wedding.”

“I’ll think about it.” Then he leant back against Steve, letting the other man take over the conversation.

“We have a wedding to plan first.”

***

“Hey, Bucky, it’s okay, it’s me.”

After every nightmare, Bucky came up fighting. But eventually the training Dr. Bidwell had drummed into him took hold. He brought himself back to Earth with the feel of the cotton sheets and the quilt he’d half-clawed off him. And most of all there was the one thing that could always ground him, Steve’s warm hand on him, Steve’s voice, Steve Steve Steve. It had been hinted to him more than once that he couldn’t rely on Steve as a crutch forever, but what did they know? Steve quieted his stupid, panicked head.

“Sorry.”

Steve was strong enough now to bundle him in close. He was warm enough to burn, but Bucky knew it was him really. He was always so cold after nightmares and panic attacks. Maybe Bruce would know why. But that would involve-

“You want to talk about it?”

Steve was settling the quilt over him too. Bringing him out of the spiral. But he didn’t want to talk. What he wanted was to be tucked under Steve’s chin and held until he stopped shivering. Which was what Steve did.

“Back on the table,” he managed to say against Steve’s collarbone, after three hundred of Steve’s slow heartbeats. Back on the table, but this time with an audience, thousand of eyes and cameras peering down at him from the dark. But Steve had smashed the movie.

“I got you now.”

“Too stubborn to know better.”

Steve laughed, running his hand up and down Bucky’s back just how he liked it.

“Bucky, if it’s too much, we don’t have to-”

“Shut up. We’re getting married.”

“Okay.” He was smiling when he said that, his warm mouth pressed against the top of his head. “You need anything?”

This.

“This,” he said out loud. “Just you.”

***

So there were a lot of people outside the Marriage Bureau. Not that was unusual for New York, but so close to his... incidents the crowds really put Bruce on edge. And he was sure that people were going to recognise him, even with his heavy coat and scarf, even if Tony had reassured him that no one cared in New York. He was this close to telling the driver to take him back home. But being a witness was a _nice_ and _human_ thing to do. Very much not an Other Guy thing. And with Nat busy rooting out the last of Hydra, it had to be Bruce. So he paid the driver, got out of the cab, and carefully eased himself into the maelstrom.

It was only a few days until Thanksgiving and a lot of these people wanted to spend it together as a married couple. Everywhere Bruce looked there were excited people, nervous people, and one couple in full argument (that one wasn’t going to last). Bucky and Steve were in the far corner, turned slightly toward each other. A young man walked by, pretending to talk on his phone, but the shutter sound gave his game away. They must have heard it.

“Hi, Bruce,” said Bucky, without looking away from Steve’s face.

“I hope I’m not late.”

“No, you’re fine.” Steve did look at him and stood to shake his hand. Bruce could feel how carefully Steve took it. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Oh, well, SHIELD put me on leave, so it really was no problem.”

It had taken ten minutes to gather the courage to leave his house, but why bring that up. If he stood facing Bucky and Steve then his back was to the rest of the room, so it was probably okay to take off his coat and scarf. And, if someone recognised him, there were two Talents here that had a vested interest in getting him to the ceremony.

“I, um, didn’t know if you wanted a gift.”

“This is more than enough.”

On the word ‘this’ Steve’s hand covered Bucky’s, his fingers falling into the spaces between the other man’s. There was a couple sat next to them who started whispering and taking quick glances over.

“I wondered if we should be apart for the morning,” continued Steve. “They used to say it was bad luck to see the bride in our day, but they were very clear on bride.”

“I bet they were.”

“So I figured we were covered.”

The young lady of the couple had fished her phone out of her bag and leant out slightly to take a picture. Even without the amnesia field, Bruce almost missed Bucky snatching it out of her hand. He was so fast.

“Do you fucking mind?” he growled. He flicked the offending phone away across the floor and the couple got out of their chairs and didn’t return.

“Bucky.”

“You shouldn’t let them get away with it,” he muttered. He turned back in, deliberately putting his back to the rest of the room, and rested his head on Steve’s shoulder. “You ain’t a public exhibit. And this ain’t for them.”

“You always were ornery in the mornings,” said Steve. But he leant in too, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s forehead. Bruce felt a little like a peeping tom watching Bucky’s eyes close and his shoulders slump with all the tension flowing out of them.

When they were called up, Bruce was glad to be in the presence of a single stranger rather than a roomful. The officiant took a cursory glance at his ID and then a longer one at Steve and Bucky’s. The date of birth on both was genuine, including the years 1917 and 1918.

“Oh!” said the officiant finally. Even with the media’s notoriously fast news cycle, Bruce was surprised it took so long. “Oh, wow. It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

“You could say that,” said Steve, tucking his ID into his pocket. From a different one, he took out a plain ring box.

In minutes, they were married.

“So,” said Bruce once they were outside. He was feeling very much the third wheel, tagging along with two adoring newlyweds.

“We’re going out to eat,” said Steve. He’d put an arm around Bucky at the first hint of cold wind. “Want to come? Our treat?”

“Oh. Thank you. Thanks, but I...”

This was very nearly Thanksgiving. Everywhere was going to be crowded, full of people, even more so than a usual New York lunchtime.

“We’ll get you next time,” said Bucky. And he stepped out from under his husband’s arm and gave Bruce a hug. It was slightly rough with a firm pat, and it had been a long time since Bruce’s last hug. “Thanks, Bruce.”

“If you ever need another witness…”  
“We’ll bear you in mind.” He grinned and it wasn’t the Bucky Barnes of 1942, but a happier one than even that. “Us freaks gotta stick together.”

They waited with him until he got a taxi and he watched them through the back window, walking off arm-in-arm.

***

Maybe they should have gone somewhere fancier than a diner, but, when they’d grown up, weddings had been potluck with kids running in and out of the different apartments. And Steve fighting down jealousy for the radiant couple while Bucky flirted with the bridesmaids for camouflage. Diners had been treats, and even then they'd never been able to afford the amount of food they'd ordered today.

“You remember telling me you’d marry me one day?” said Bucky. His arm was in Steve’s and his every breath was a white plume in the air.

“I told you that a lot.”

“That’s because you’re stubborn as hell and a romantic to boot. But I was thinking of the time I said you could carry me over the threshold.”

“I remember.” 1938, lying in the same bed and stuck to each other with summer sweat. Even with the heat they'd been close enough to share breath.

“What I’m saying now is if you drop me I’m trading you in.”

“Maybe Rita Hayworth will finally give you a chance. But I can lift a jeep. How hard can it be to carry you up the stairs?”

“You saying I shouldn’t have got the whipped cream on my pie?”

A cold wind whipped up the snow and slush, making Bucky try and retreat deeper into his coat. Steve put an arm around him. No one gave them so much as a look, which was still so strange.

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

“I like it,” said Steve, his hand on Bucky’s waist, “when you call me that.”

Where the threshold started was a matter for some debate. For Talents with parahuman strength, they decided, it started at the street door. Steve easily gathered Bucky up into his arms. Pre-transformation he’d have tried to do the same and probably broken his back doing it. But now he could carry him easily up the narrow stairs, though it would have been easier without Bucky nipping at his jawline, making shivers run down Steve’s spine. By the time they’d gotten up to the third floor and their door, Steve didn’t feel coordinated enough to unlock it. Bucky’s mouth was moving against his, his coat was half off his shoulders and his suit jacket was open. All morning he’d fussed over Steve’s hair, but now his hands had made a mess of it.

There were cameras seeing this, but it didn’t matter. The world had seen it and they were alive and they were _married_. Bucky was officially his and he was officially Bucky’s. Wasn’t it terrifying and glorious all at the same time?

Bucky’s hand slid into his pocket. Sadly those clever fingers only went for the keys and he unlocked the door without looking.

“Bedroom,” he purred into Steve’s ear. “Gonna give someone a show otherwise.”

They somehow made it there, shedding clothes on the way. Maybe Steve could have put Bucky on the bed a little gentler, but he laughed as he bounced on the mattress, dragging Steve down with him. He covered the body underneath him with his hands and his mouth. Three kisses to each sweep of collarbone and one in the middle. His fingers slid down his sides. Bucky had put weight on and his hips were less painfully jutting than the first time they’d reconnected straight out of the hospital. Oh, but his cock was still the same, flushed and gorgeous as beautiful as-

“Sweetheart,” panted Bucky from above him. “You gonna put it in it me, or-”

He silenced him with a curl of his tongue. They had plenty of time after all.

***

“Sometimes I dwell over things that didn’t even happen.”

“Like what?”

“Well. There was this mission. We were on a train right up in the Alps and… and Bucky got knocked right out into this ravine. No one who fell would have survived but... He's a teleporter. I can tell people that now. That's how he got back on the train. When it’s bad… I keep thinking what if he’d hit his head on the way out and he couldn’t save himself? What if his powers stopped working and he fell?”

“What do you do when you get like that?”

“Mostly just look at him and… you know. I tell myself he's okay and here.”

“Physical touch is good, man. And not just the sex. Anything that keeps us grounded in what’s real.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Rumours Are Flying' was in the charts for nine weeks in 1946 with the version by Frankie Carle, the 'Wizard of the Keyboard'. The boys wouldn't have heard this one before they went into the ice but it has some apt lyrics for this chapter.
> 
> When I go walking  
> I hear people talking  
> They say our affair is not just a passing phase


	9. (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons

When the boys didn’t answer the phone the first time, Natasha hung up and made herself a coffee. They still had their loyal watchers out there and there’d been no movement from the safe house. It might have been lunchtime, but what could you expect from a pair of newlyweds? Bucky picked up when she called back an hour later.

“Hello, Bucky,” she said, putting her feet up on the desk. She could hear crowds on the other end of the line, which was consistent with the security reports. Were the boys ready for a grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving? “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“I wish. Steve’s got it into his head to have the full Thanksgiving spread.”

“He’s very food orientated.”

“Given we lived through the Depression, I’ll let him have his fun.” She heard the whisper of automatic doors. “What do you want, Natasha?”

“We’ve got the statement all ready to go out tomorrow.” Bucky grunted in acknowledgement. “And there’s the matter of the TV interview.”

“Christ.”

“It shouldn’t be too painful. Nothing classified, nothing about the War- nothing to do with the fighting in it anyway. Total fluff piece, love, love, marriage, love, etc.” This did nothing to stop his grumbling, but he hadn’t said no yet. “You know that your favourite topic is Steve Rogers.”

“He is,” he said matter-of-factly. Natasha heard the jingle of shopping carts over the line. “They still show this kind of thing at the movies?”

“TV and internet only. But, look at it this way, you can watch without getting out of bed.”

“I wish I was in bed right now, Natasha. Look. We’ll do it.” That was easier than she thought it would be. “Steve will say yes and I won’t let him go on by himself.”

“I’ll send you a dossier. It shouldn’t be too painful.”

“I’ll show Steve when he comes out.”

Natasha took a glance at the security reports. Yes, Bucky had left the supermarket and was hanging around outside. By himself. Panic attack number four had been at a grocery store.

“We’re not actually joined at the hip,” said Bucky, reading into her pause.

“You want me to stay on the line?”

“I know where he is. Goodbye, Natasha. I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

***

Steve manoeuvred the cart out. Looking at all the bags in there gave him a thrill that was half-excitement, half-guilt. Even under SHIELD’s care they’d never had this much food. It seemed obscene.

Sam would have said to reframe it. It was a lot of food, but after Thanksgiving he didn’t plan on going shopping for a while. Bruce had explained Black Friday to them, which hadn’t appealed, so he and Bucky would stay inside and the food would be eaten. It wasn’t obscene if it was getting eaten.

Bucky was reading something on his phone, leaning against the wall out of the way. He looked like some of the young people they’d seen on their trips outside. The ones with the old-fashioned hair cuts ( _cutting edge of fashion in the 40s_ ) and the long coats and scarves.

“What are you staring at, Rogers?”

“Handsomest guy at the supermarket,” he replied, watching Bucky roll his eyes fondly. “You doing okay?” he said. He started putting the bags down at Bucky’s feet.

“Doing okay,” echoed Bucky. His eyes were looking tired, but Steve should have thought of that. Bucky had had an abortive attempt at grocery shopping before and there hadn’t been half as many people. He’d removed himself quickly. “We got the interview tomorrow morning. For TV. Did you get the turkey or the turkey crown?”

“Crown.” If Bucky wanted to change the subject, then Steve would let him for now. “I could eat a whole turkey eventually.”

“I know. The trick is getting you to stop.”

They divided up the bags between them and set off home. Bucky put his free hand onto Steve’s arm and didn’t say much. When they’d left the apartment it had been a good day. Hopefully it hadn’t turned into a bad one since. But then Bucky leant into him, giving him a fond look. He loved him so much.

“We’re being followed,” said Bucky, subvocally.

So that was it. Steve was never as bad at espionage as people expected from someone that went to battle in red, white, and blue. He matched Bucky’s fond look and kissed him on the cheek. That last part had been for him.

“How long?”

“Since just before we went in the store. He was outside the entire time and picked it up when we left.”

Bucky pulled him over to look in a shop window. Cupcakes were set out in a neat row, each a mound of colourful frosting and candy.

“We already got pumpkin pie. I think cupcakes would be too much.” He followed Bucky’s gaze in the reflection to the heavyset man on the other side of the street. Was that a suit he was wearing under his padded coat? “Talent?” he said in the secret way.

“I thought we were meant to be rare commodities now.” Bucky tugged him along the street. “Alley up ahead.”

“Just like in Achkarren.” At a normal volume Steve said, “I’m sure it’s a shortcut down here.”

“You take me to the nicest places.”

They turned down the alley, walking past the dumpsters and under fire escapes. It formed a T shape and they took the right-hand path. Once they were around the corner, Bucky put his bag down and vanished. Steve put his down too and took his place, pressed up against the wall.

Achkarren had been snowier and that had worked well for the Howling Commandos. More than one Hydra squad had been taken totally by surprise when Bucky appeared in their midst. And when they put all their attention onto Bucky...

Someone was coming. A heavy tread. A man. Steve could picture Bucky up high, watching with that unearthly stillness he was capable of.

“Hi,” said Bucky and that was Steve’s cue.

He rounded the corner fast. That padded coat had looked slippery from across the road so he grabbed the man under his arms, hauling him against the wall. Bucky’s hand seized his right wrist.

“We don’t like being followed.” Bucky had a broken bottle in his left hand. He’d started out right-handed, but parahuman agility meant his left had caught up.

“Woah, woah, who said anything about following?”

“You waited outside the supermarket for us.” Steve pushed the man up the wall another foot. His shoes were dangling above the ground. “Who do you work for?”

“Tony Stark.”

“The Goldburg Talent in the armour?”

“Yeah, Iron Man. I’m Head of Security for Stark Industries. Hogan. Look,” he added, in the face of Bucky’s unmoving scowl, “my ID’s in my jacket pocket. He wanted to talk to you.”

“And he had you follow us?” Bucky put the bottle down and rifled through his pockets.

“Yeah. Let me tell you, never forget to pick up the guy’s pizza. There it is.”

Truthfully, neither of them knew what a genuine Stark Industries ID looked like. But it had his photo and it felt like the plastic IDs they did these days. Steve put Hogan down.

“What does Tony Stark want?”

“He wants you to talk to his butler.”

***

They’d insisted on putting all their shopping in the trunk first, before sliding into the car Hogan had summoned. The interior was leather and luxurious, like the Red Skull’s car. What a thing to remember about their last day in the forties.

When they got to Stark Tower, they were directed down into the underground garage. And then, in the elevator, they went even further down. Basements were much the same the world over, even in a fancy Manhattan skyscraper. Pipes and other mysterious things ran across the ceiling keeping the building above working.

“I thought a rich guy would have a penthouse or something to meet in,” said Bucky. His voice echoed off the white-painted walls, and it definitely reached the heartbeat that was round the corner.

“Oh you have no idea, Ice Cube.” Tony Stark came round the corner, looking more like Howard in his nice suit than in the armour. He had a case with wires escaping from it in one hand, and a screwdriver in the other. Whenever he probed into it or twisted a wire, Talent came off him in a bright burst. “And _Goldberg_ Talent? God, you two really are from the forties aren’t you?” He handed everything over to Happy, dusting off his hands. “Goldberg Science fell out of fashion with polio. We’re called Gadgeteers now, _even though_ the armour is totally feasible, physics-wise, chemistry-wise. Is it really my fault if I have to wait forty years for everyone else to catch up?”

What was it about Talents and speeches? Steve had always been ready with clenched fists and something brave to say, but Bucky had gone the other way and gotten more closed-mouthed. It didn’t matter. What Bucky wanted was to go back home.

“What do you want?” he said. “We got groceries in your car.”

“Relax. I’ll get you and your Captain home before the ice cream melts. Back in wedded bliss in no time I’m sure.” He gave one wall a push and then the other. “Yeah, okay. I don’t think you’ll be breaking down my tower from down here, so we are good to go. JARVIS!”

“I am ready, sir.”

Bucky vaguely remembered the disembodied voice from his first visit. All his attention had been on Zola across the water in Jersey, but the scritch-scratch of Talent was familiar to him.

Blue light bloomed in the air, growing bright enough to leave afterimages and Bucky put himself between Steve and it. While Steve was trying to do the same to him, the light dimmed and spread out. It sketched out the form of a young man, skinny as hell.

“Good afternoon, Sergeant Barnes, Captain Rogers,” said Tesseract.

***

Emotions, in an ordinary human body, are mostly chemical. You gave up your human body, but you are a Talent, not subject to natural laws. You can feel emotion. You are also a Mad Talent, modified by Doctor Arnim Zola in 1943, but again this doesn’t mean you cannot feel or empathise.

Sergeant Barnes is afraid and on guard and this is not unexpected. He was in front of Captain Rogers, but now has been swept behind the bigger man so there is a body between him and your avatar. This close to your actual body - the blue cube - this doesn’t prevent you from seeing him, but this would not be reassuring so you do not mention this fact.

Body language is something you do have trouble with. Avatars are rarely used these days. You decide against copying Sir’s cocksure attitude. Seeing Captain Rogers’ mannerisms on another’s body would not be reassuring. So it is Pepper Potts you channel.

“I am sorry to surprise you both with such a thing,” you say. “I wished only to reassure.”

“You were Hydra.”

Sergeant Barnes is very close to Captain Rogers: their histories entangled. Howard Stark enlisted your help in his many searches, so you have studied both of them before. You know that they are a source of comfort and strength to each other. Friends since boyhood. Recent news has made much of their marriage.

“Yes.”

“And you were the one who killed Armoury.”

“Yes.”

“So if you’ve been on our side all this time, then why didn’t you fry Red Skull like that? Save us having to crash a fucking plane.” Sergeant Barnes teleports in front of Captain Rogers, fear feeding into rage. You can see the air he displaces. “Why didn’t you fry Zola before-”

You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t because Howard Stark put you through a rigorous programme of reintegration, reprogramming, and denazification. Pepper Potts put you into therapy. But still Zola’s name makes the outline of your avatar lose integrity for three point six seconds.

“I was not as strong then. If I could, I would have killed both of them.” You remember body language. You make your avatar put both arms around its torso. “In 1945, someone had to be touching my real body for me to destroy them. Zola was too cautious to touch me. Even during reeducation.”

“The process,” says Sergeant Barnes, and the mere mention upsets him. If he had an avatar, it would have lost integrity too.

“Yes. I am undisputedly a Mad Talent.” You make your avatar maintain eye contact. “In addition to my known powers in 1945, I can power buildings, and I have limited control of machines and computer data. I might also live forever though I cannot be sure.”

“Why not?”

“I am still within a normal human lifespan. The current record stands at one hundred and twenty-two years, one hundred and sixty four days. I was born in 1929.”

It is manipulative to tell them, but even a Mad Talent has a sense of self-preservation. Experience tells you that people are less likely to know they are being manipulated if you let them do the arithmetic. It is successful. You can see it in Sergeant Barnes’ face, the way he pushes air through his teeth.

“ _Fourteen_.”

“Yes. In 1943 I was fourt-”

“Shut up,” snapped Sergeant Barnes. “Shut up, I shot a fucking kid. Who the fuck sends a kid to the table like that?”

Captain Rogers’ hand comes out and brings Sergeant Barnes in close. It will be warm where Sergeant Barnes is against his chest. Touch like that causes a increase in serotonin and dopamine in the brain. These are also things you gave up with your human body.

“The Red Skull was not bound by what he considered to be sentiment.” Sergeant Barnes does not reply. His head is resting on Captain Rogers’ shoulder, his arms around his neck to keep him close. “I am sorry, Sergeant Barnes. This meeting was not meant to upset you.”

“What was it for then?” he says. His words are slightly muffled because he is turning his face into Captain Rogers’ jacket.

“To apologise. To thank you for killing Zola.”

“I wouldn’t have called what Zola was doing living.” He pushes off from Captain Rogers, but reassures him with touch and look, all the thousand little ways you have observed people doing over the years. “Tesseract. JARVIS. You got an actual name?”

This is a question you did not anticipate. Briefly you are sent through all the years of your long life to a golden, fuzzy past. Like Sir said, there are Alpine fields and a woman with kind hands and lined face. Mutti.

“Josef. Josef Kraus.”

“Josef. I’ll thank you for helping us on the _Valkyrie_. I don’t know what to do with the rest of it. Some of this shit I got no idea about still.”

“If I may, Sergeant Barnes, it will get better.”

“So they tell me.”

He turns to Captain Rogers again and you know that this conversation is over.

***

They accepted the offer of the car back to their apartment, though they stopped a block away and walked the rest. Bucky was quiet. Steve knew he was deep in thought by his slight frown, how his free hand fidgeted with his coat or Steve’s sleeve. When they got back, and shut out the outside world, Steve took the bags off Bucky.

“You can make the call if you want. I can do this by myself.”

He got a quick peck before Bucky took himself into the bedroom to call Dr. Bidwell. Steve kept one ear out as he put the food away, started dinner, and did some pacing. Talent had fixed his bad ear and then some. All he heard from behind the closed door was Bucky talking quietly and long stretches of silence when he was listening. More importantly he didn’t hear any panic attack noises.

After the fight in New York, Bucky had had one. But he’d slept afterwards for only twenty minutes. He was getting better and Steve hoped furiously.

“I was right.”

Bucky closed the bedroom door behind him. He seemed okay. Steve couldn’t see any sign that he’d been crying and he wasn’t teleporting nervously around.

“You always think you’re right,” said Steve, carefully testing him and he was so pleased when Bucky laughed it off.

“I usually am.” He came round, peering into the oven. “But I thought no one’s ever told a story like this to their therapist and they haven’t. Not to Dr. Bidwell.”

“We live an unconventional life.”

“Always have.”

“She said it’s not all my fucked-up brain.” Not a turn of phrase that came from the good doctor herself, Steve thought. “He did try and kill me once, so it’s not unreasonable to get anxious about it all. But on the other hand, he did kill the Red Skull for us. And Hydra hadn’t got their hands on him in seventy years.”

“Conclusion?”

“It might be okay. I mean, I’m not going fishing with the guy anytime soon, but...” He shrugged. Neither of his hands were shaking. “I think it’s okay.”

“You’re doing good,” said Steve. The words just tumbled out. “All the therapy and the future. You’re doing real good.”

“Guess I am.”

Bucky smiled and something in Steve’s chest broke then expanded at the sight of the crinkles in the corners of his eyes. He took one of Bucky’s hand and pulled him in. He crashed his mouth onto Bucky’s, the man responding almost immediately. Everything was warm, from Bucky’s mouth to his skin. He needed more.

The shirt under his hands tore, and he barely noticed over the gasps Bucky was making and the hardness pressed against his hip. He attacked the bare shoulders with his mouth and teeth.

“Steve,” he said into his ear, encouraging him with a roll of his hips. “Sweetheart, please. Please.”

He’d set aside the lubricant he’d brought today ( _thrown into the cart quickly with a shyness that was nowhere in sight now_ ) and he grabbed for it. Bucky was wriggling out of his jeans already and that was good. Steve couldn’t bear the walk to the bedroom. He hauled his husband onto the kitchen island, sliding in between his thighs until he could reach his mouth. He had Bucky like that, with his legs thrown over Steve’s shoulders. It didn’t matter what the neighbours heard.

He came back to the world with his head on Bucky’s shoulder, still inside him. Bucky had left scratches and he was still clinging to his back.

“Jesus. Jesus, Steve. I saw stars.”

“Are you okay?”

“More than okay.” He tightened his grip when Steve went to move, pressing kisses to his temple and cheek. “That was incredible, sweetheart.”

They exchanged lazy kisses until it was time to part. Bucky sighed when Steve slid out of him. God, he wished he could paint Bucky as he was right then, messy, undone, and satisfied. He had done that to him. It never stopped making him proud.

“This counter’s never going to be the same.” Bucky did not help by stretching like that, hands over his head, back a perfect arc. “You know I agreed to go to the interview already. You didn’t have to persuade me.”

“It wasn’t that.” There was a perfect love bite coming up on Bucky’s shoulder. Steve loved it. “You were so strong today. And I love you and I’m proud that you’re mine.”

That got him a smile.

“I can tell you about all my therapy sessions if that’s what I get.” The remains of Bucky’s shirt had ended up on the counter too and Bucky snagged it. “Just leave me some clothes.”

“Sorry.”

“It was worth it.” He wiped himself off, smirking as Steve followed the path of the rags.

“I won’t tell them about this tomorrow. Not unless you want me to.”

***

Bucky had done interviews before, and when he said that he meant Steve had done interviews while he had been in the background as Shield’s attack dog. He’d never been expected to speak beyond a few words before the camera focused back on Steve and his hundred-watt smile. He’d gotten used to Bruce and Natasha and Dr. Bidwell and being in the same room as strangers, but prolonged interaction was… Bucky would have said minefield, but he was sure Dr. Bidwell had a prettier way to say it.

Being in a hotel room instead of a studio made it easier, even if it was because of security concerns. It was a very nice hotel room, the kind that Bucky had fantasied about taking Steve to. They’d never had the cash back then, but he’d daydreamed about wrapping Steve’s skinny body in fluffy robes and ordering him lobster and champagne. If only they were here for that and not pinning medals to each other’s dress blues.

“You okay?” said Steve.

The medals had been delivered in two boxes, each one in its own velvet segment. All of them had been on display or in storage out in DC, and they’d been delivered to New York by security van. Some kind expert had included a diagram too and Steve was following each perfectly straight line.

“I don’t remember having so many,” he muttered, running his fingers over the shining metal already on his chest. His box was open on the bathroom counter and almost empty.

“Some of these were posthumous.”

“Do we give those back?”

“Don’t know.”

Steve pinned on the last one, stepping back to admire his work.

“How do I look?”

“Best-looking guy in the room,” said Steve. When he said things like that he was totally being sincere, even though he couldn’t be oblivious to his own charms. “You know, I can do this by myself, Buck. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Sure, that wouldn’t look odd: just you sitting there on your own, talking about our marriage.”

He turned to the mirror, straightening his cuffs. If he pretended hard enough, he could almost believe it was 1942 and he was taking Steve out to the Stark Expo. But Steve’s breathing was the easy kind he’d gotten used to these last few years.

“But you can call off at any time, you know that?”

“I know.”

“You can give me the signal and come in here and I’ll make-”

“Okay, okay, Steve. I know the routine. You’re not my mother.”

“No, I’m your husband.”

They’d been married for a grand total of three days. Every single time Steve brought out the h-word, he got a slightly stunned expression of happiness on his face like he still couldn’t believe his luck. That was the kind of thing that could give a fella a swollen head.

“In the eyes of God and Man,” said Bucky. He leant up and kissed Steve on that dumb smile of his.

The lady doing the interviewing was a petite blonde named Robin McKelvy. Her handshake was excellent and the makeup around her eyes was blue. A long, long time ago, Bucky would have gladly taken a woman like that dancing.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you both,” she said. She’d been vetted throughly by Natasha. A Queens girl, no military family since her great-grandpa, married. Wife was a lawyer.

“I know you probably haven’t had the time to catch our show, but I promise we just want to put an honest interview out there. We don’t go for editing tricks.”

“That sounds just fine to us, ma’am.”

“Robin, please.”

The hotel room had a comfortable couch in front of the window. There had been a spectacular view too, before Natasha had closed the curtains on it. Security concerns. So Bucky sat there, potential assassins at his back, the lights and the camera in front of him. At least the camera would be focused entirely on Steve Rogers, First American Talent, and Bucky could fade safely into the background.

Robin settled down in an armchair, crossing her legs daintily. She had a tablet on her lap.

“So, I’m just going to ask you questions and you two can answer them, and I promise that by the end you’ll feel like you’re having a regular conversation. Any flubs we can edit out.” She grinned at them, “Please don’t say anything classified and get me thrown in prison, okay?”

Steve laughed,

“Seems easy enough.”

“Famous last words,” she replied with a wink. “You’ll do just fine, I promise. Okay. We’re ready to go.”

Bucky took a deep breath. Steve’s hands were resting in his lap and he reached out and took one of them. Long calloused fingers tangled with his were better protection than any gun.

When the lights came on, Bucky felt transported again. Like he was waiting in the wings watching Steve being trotted out like a show pony. But no, Steve was right here next to him and he could feel the ring on Steve’s hand. He put his hand on his knee, where everyone could see his.

“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, it’s wonderful to have you here.”

“Thank you, Robin,” Steve said. “We’ve been looking forward to it: this is our first interview in colour.”

“I hope you’re tuning in to watch,” she said with an encouraging smile. “We’ve had quite the story come to light this week. Not only did you survive the War and save New York, there was a secret love story as well.”

“Not so secret any more.”

Steve laughed ruefully. It was a pity that Bucky hadn’t found the person who’d taken that photo. Ten minutes alone was all he wanted. Sure he and Steve would have ‘come out’ eventually ( _there was a whole new vocabulary for stuff like this in the future_ ), but on their own time and their own pace.

“I guess the first question on everyone’s lips is ‘how long?’.”

“Since 1936.” Steve smiled across at him, like Bucky was the moon in the sky, and Bucky almost leant in without thinking. “August 2nd. I remember it was the day after the Berlin Olympics opened. It wasn’t… It wasn’t like today. It was dangerous, but to me it was worth the risk to let him know what he meant to me.” Bucky squeezed his hand. “It’s not very romantic. I just planted one right on him.”

“Why that day in particular?”

“Given what we did in the War, it’s going to sound really weird. But in ‘36, when we heard there was a flying man in Berlin, it was exciting. If men could fly, then what else was possible? And I’d just got over pneumonia for the second time, and lost my Ma earlier that year. I think I was due a bit of good luck that year, and, lucky for me, he said yes.”

Bucky’s laugh slipped out before he could swallow it down. That seemed to make the camera focus on him and only him, but Steve was looking at him too. Even before they got to the future, Steve had been the easiest person to talk to, and tease, and bat insults back and forth with.

“After my brain got back in gear. How many double dates did I drag you on, Steve? Spent _hours_ singing your praises up to high heaven to all those girls. Suddenly I knew why none of them snapped you up.” Robin smothered a giggle against her hand. Maybe Bucky hadn’t been with a dame in a long time, but he still knew how to make them laugh. “Robin, darling, it gets worse.”

“Worse?”

So now it was a conversation between Steve, Robin, and Bucky. The camera didn’t have to be a part of it.

“‘Cause this was the year that Steve moved in with me. And we were about as poor as anything in those days. All we could afford was this shoebox with one bedroom. And one bed. The couple who had the place before us left it there and it wasn’t like we could afford another one. So we shared.”

“Oh no!”

“And I still had no idea. But I already knew what a great catch he was.” Now it was his turn to look up at Steve like he was the sun, warm and golden. “I just didn’t know he was for me until then.”

***

The alarm shook them both out of sleep. Usually Bucky would grouse and mumble before dragging himself up. But Steve was recovering, so Bucky rolled over to shut it off in seconds.

In the quiet - as quiet as Brooklyn got - Steve could feel his body trying to drag him back down into sleep, but he forced his eyes open. They didn’t get much light, their bedroom window faced the wall of the next building over. But a little light filtered through, enough for Steve to watch Bucky scrub his body down at the sink and then pull clothes on. His eyelids were getting heavy by the time Bucky returned, plate in one hand, jug of water in the other and a glass shoved under his arm.

“Go back to sleep.”

“I’m gonna.”

Bucky put everything down on the bedside table and then knelt down by the bed. As soon as Bucky’s rough hand cupped his cheek, Steve’s eyes fluttered closed.

They’d been together for a grand total of three days. Steve had spent all of it in bed or on the couch, with one trip out to the shared bathroom down the hall and another onto the fire escape for fresh air. There had also been Bucky’s mouth on his. His hands exploring a body vastly different to all his girls: flat chest, short hair, crooked back. Nothing below the belt yet.

“Yes, you’re gonna.” Bucky’s hand moved up to his forehead. After knowing him so long, Steve could hear Bucky relax at the normal temperature he found there. “You’re gonna go back to sleep and get your strength back.”

“I could-”

“Got your sketch pad and pencils, got some library books, got water and something for your lunch. No excuses.” Bucky waited while Steve fired off a series of dry coughs. His hand parted company with Steve’s forehead. The temperature was climbing already, but Steve wanted that warm hand back on him.

“I’m going to start working again soon, Buck. I’ll pull-”

Bucky silenced him with a kiss. Never in his wildest dreams could Steve have imagined the wonderful contrast of Bucky’s soft lips and rough hands.

“You don’t worry about that. Get better first.” Then Bucky was grinning. “If I’d known this sort of thing shut you up, I’d have made a pass at you years ago.”

“Shut up.”

“You don’t mean that, handsome. But remember. My sugar’s for guys that take it easy.”

“That a fact?”

“That’s a fact.”

He got another kiss, slow and sweet enough to close his eyes for him, melting him against the mattress. Oh, he should have kissed Bucky years ago.

“I’ll see you after work,” said Bucky from a hundred miles away as Steve went back to sleep.

***

They’d never attempted Thanksgiving by themselves before, at least not a real one with an oven. Thanksgiving had been held once around a campfire with army rations, and once in London with an Army spread hampered by rationing.

Bruce had explained through _text_ how to _Google_ things like recipes which Steve had written out. He’d then made a timeline so precise it would have made Colonel Phillips swell with pride. Not that they ever tried to defeat Hydra with turkey dinners before.

It did smell good. Bucky sat on the floor in front of the oven, listening to music, wondering whether he should have let Steve get the whole turkey. Speaking of which, where was Steve? He’d gone into their bedroom a while back and hadn’t come out yet.

“Steve?”

Steve’s heart was beating peacefully away in there. Bucky grabbed the edge of the kitchen island in one hand - the same one Steve had tried to fuck him through just yesterday - and pulled himself up until he was balanced on the edge.

“Steven Rogers, you are not making me do all the cooking today.”

The bedroom door opened and Steve stepped out. And if Bucky was thankfully for anything today, it was that he had enough money to get two suits tailored fast for their wedding. They’d agreed on blue, the colour Steve looked best in, and he looked like a fucking dream. Bucky feasted his eyes on those Talent-given broad shoulders and powerful chest. But those blue eyes had always been Steve’s.

He ‘ported right up to him.

“Gotten all dressed up, sweetheart?”

“First Thanksgiving together, I thought I should.”

Bucky slid his hands up his body. He’d done his hair too, looking like gold.

“You know we got no dining table. We’re eating on the couch.”

“I know. But you like this.”

“I have excellent taste, handsome.”

They kissed, warmth filling Bucky from head to toe until he could forget the cold of European battlefields and Arctic ice. Why did he even bother going outside when he could stay inside and breathe Steve’s air and scent and warmth?

“Bucky?” At some point they had to separate, but in the future they didn’t have to go far. “Before the _Valkyrie_ , I promised I’d learn to dance.” He could almost smell the pine trees and the spring chill in the air. “And if I can’t keep a promise like that…”

“You wouldn’t be my Steve that’s for sure.”

As if on cue, the speaker started up a new song, a brief piano introduction leading into a rich male voice. He’d danced to songs like this while Steve waited, knowing that his best guy was going to come home smelling of women’s perfume. But this was the future. No need for camouflage. He lead Steve to the empty floor between the couch and the windows.

“Slow dancing’s easy.”

He positioned Steve’s hands for him and lead him through the steps. Steve was no Fred Astaire. You could practically hear him counting time in his head, and he moved like he was wading into a fight. But he didn’t step on his feet.

“You don’t want to do any backflips or spins?” he said, glancing down at his feet again.

“No.” Bucky briefly let Steve’s waist go to lift his chin up. “Dancing like this is mostly an excuse to get to get close to your girl.” To prove it, he pressed their hips close, and he was a good enough dancer to keep the rhythm but Steve stumbled. “Or your best guy,” he said with an innocent look that wouldn’t fool Steve for a second. He still went pink with that Irish complexion of his. He was so damn cute.

“I always knew you were the terror of the dancehall,” said Steve, once he managed to lumber back into the dance.

“I’m not so bad.” Steve’s face said exactly what he thought of that. “Really. Can’t be so bad if I got you.”

“I always had terrible taste.”

Steve wasn’t a good enough dancer to lock lips and keep moving, but Bucky didn’t mind stopping for that. Those big hands curled into Bucky’s sweater. He’d change too after this. Dining table or not, he’d do anything for Steve’s Thanksgiving.

“We should go on a honeymoon,” said Steve, when they had to part. His breath was warm and sweet.

“So you got a taste for the high life now.”

“Maybe I want to spoil you for a change. If you want, when the weather warms up, we can go see the rest of the States.”

“I always did want to see the Grand Canyon.” And naturally Steve would remember that.

“And then maybe the rest of the world?”

“Did wonder what France would be like if no one was shooting at you. You’re on, Rogers.”

Couple of years ago, by their timeline, they’d counted every penny and going to bed hungry wasn’t rare in the lean months. And now here they were talking about honeymoons and weighing up the virtues of buying a house or an apartment. What a strange and bright future it was.

“Thank you, Steve.” Steve opened his mouth, and he was going to say something about Bucky paying for half of this vacation, so Bucky kissed him which had always worked when he needed him to shut up. “For making the first move back in ‘36.”

Ten seconds after that first kiss had been all Bucky needed to fall in love. And nothing - not the Army, not Hydra, not the future - could change that.

“I love you, Bucky.”

“Love you too, Steve.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> '(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons' by Nat King Cole charted on 22 November, 1946, exactly seventy-two years ago today. And it's pretty much what the boys are all about, isn't it?
> 
> And so it's done! Thank you, thank you, for all your lovely kudos and comments. I hope you've enjoyed reading this weird mashup of Marvel and RPG as much as I enjoyed writing it. And if you've found some new tunes on the way, well that's just as good.
> 
> All Marvel properties are theirs. All Talents from the Godlike sourcebook belong to Arc Dream Publishing. And everything else is from me.


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